Palin May Not Have Fallen On Her Face, But She Still Lost

Based on the interviews with Katie Couric, a lot of Americans were expecting a spectacular explosion from Sarah Palin. While there were a few gaffes, for the most part she appeased her base and managed to stay on the stage for ninety minutes. Now I would have loved if Gwen Ifill asked her some of these questions but conservatives did a great job of keeping Gwen quiet and inserting a dose of covert racism into the debate in one shot.

As the show went on, Sarah followed her flow chart and while she came off as robotic at times with those talking points, she scored points with her base, especially when she viciously jabbed Biden over Iraq. Sure, the majority of the country was probably horrified to hear her say that Obama and Biden wanted to "wave a white flag of surrender," but Palin's strong suit is not to appeal to undecided voters (the majority of which are opposed to the war). In fact, as the polls showed after the debate, Biden dominated with undecideds. As long as Palin brings the fundamentalists to the polls, she'll have done her part.

While this debate will probably not sway anyone dramatically to one side or the other, there were some memorable moments. In her closing segment Sarah Palin went for the obvious Ronald Reagan reference as she tried to use people's fears so that they'd vote for her and McCain to hold onto our freedoms or else we'll have to explain the loss of them to our grandkids. It was a touching wingnut moment to say the least. Too bad the quote was about Reagan's appeal to end Medicare.

That one probably sailed over the heads of many so I think the key moment for most people was when Biden teared up over the loss of his wife and child and relating to America that he knows what it is like to be a single parent. He showed he was a human being and not just a politician. Then Sarah Palin showed her utter classlessness when she followed it up not with empathy but a tone-deaf response that showed she was still in the debate prep room while everyone else was at the main event. If she was mentally there, then that speaks even more negatively of her character.

Of course there was plenty more and we'll certainly be talking about it in the next day or so before round two of Obama/McCain starts on Tuesday. As many have pointed out, this was no Bentsen-Quayle event and even that verbal sparring match didn't help the Dukakis/Bentsen ticket. All last night did for the big picture was to show that Palin could survive a debate and that Joe Biden could clearly step in for Barack Obama in case of something godforbid. You could tell that Palin had studied and was still cramming with her notes up on stage. Meanwhile Biden spoke with ease and made his points clearly and concisely. As his word cloud shows, he hammered McCain over and over again while Palin had trouble putting together coherent sentences.

Oh and everything that DemFromCT says too.