The debate last night wasn't. A debate. It was theater although Joe Biden tried mightily to insert serious policy issues whenever Sarah Palin finally took a breath.
On the part of Sassy Sarah it was a regurgitation of talking points, many times purposefully without reference to the question posed.... delivered with eye-rolling, a wink, a nod and studied perkiness. At any moment it seemed she might break into a cheer.... YEA! RAH RAH TEAM!
Obviously channeling The Decider who was a cheerleader in Andover, Sassy Sarah dropped her g's and gave her version of aw-shucks Joe Sixpack-speak.... doggone, betcha', doin', darn right... and like Bush came off as incurious and power-grabbing, blantantly proposing to expand the powers of the Vice President's role in Congress. Yikes!
As Harold Meyerson said about her performance.... "a marvel of its kind -- dissociated, jumbled, at times completely contradictory ('you build up infrastructure and rein in government spending,' she prescribed at one point: Huh?), with soundbites appearing and reappearing almost at random, but fast, happy, almost joyous: Made it through that five-minute question that I know nothing about without even pausing: Phew!" (WaPo)
Eugene Robinson summed up Palin's Big Mistake, "Her error was that she hardly talked at all about policy solutions, except when the debate got onto the subject of energy and offshore drilling. There, she seemed on terra firma. But on everything else -- the financial crisis, the economy in general, health care, the war on terror -- she gave little more than promises of reform and 'maverick'-y governance." (WaPo)
Sarah Palin is the Vice Presidential selection of a 72-year-old-man who has had serious bouts with cancer. So, what she's about matters this election year more than most.
The country has had a belly-full of strutting shoot-from-the-hip maverick types. They are looking for change. Substance. Seriousness. A grasp of the issues.
Middle-America isn't better off than they were eight years ago.... far from it. No one is looking for someone with which to have a beer. It's grown-up time.
November 4!
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