Palin Digs Herself Out

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 3, 2008 12:54 PM

Even if expectations hadn't been in the basement, Sarah Palin did quite well last night.

Darn right, as she kept saying.

Yes, she failed to respond to Joe Biden's charge that McCain kept pushing deregulation as Wall Street spun out of control. Instead, she switched to a talking point about how she cut taxes as mayor of Wasilla.

Yes, she wasn't adept enough to parry many of the senator's policy points.

Yes, she couldn't come up with any proposal she'd scale back in light of the Wall Street meltdown ("How long have I been at this, like, five weeks?" Like, yeah.)

Yes, she faltered on foreign affairs, and the best she could do when Biden accused the administration of a disastrous policy toward Israel was to complain that the Democratic ticket "constantly looked backward."

But the main point is, she was a thousand times better than she had been with Katie Couric. She seemed poised, she smiled a lot and looked at her opponent (unlike McCain last week). She started out talking about soccer parents worried about the economy ("I betcha you're gonna hear some fear") and went on to pitch herself to "Joe Sixpack."

Biden may have outdebated her on the details of McCain's health plan and on Mideast policy. But Palin had examples -- examples! -- of such matters as McCain's health credit and Obama's tax and energy votes. Bottom line: She sounded more knowledgeable than the woman who couldn't tell Couric a Supreme Court ruling she disagreed with.

In a normal debate, I'd say Biden won. But Sarah Palin didn't need to beat Joe Biden. She just needed to erase the scattered, deer-in-the-headlights image of herself created by the Katie and Charlie interviews. And by any fair-minded analysis, she went a long way toward doing that.

Palin ignored some of Gwen Ifill's questions, but debaters are allowed to do that. Biden scored when Palin tried to sidestep her past questioning of global warming as caused by man ("I don't want to argue about the causes") by noting the obvious: You can't come up with a solution unless you know whether human activity is the culprit.

Biden scored again when the governor said it would be a "travesty" to leave Eye-raq when victory is close, and he responded: "I didn't hear a plan." Will voters buy Palin's description of Obama's withdrawal strategy as a "white flag of surrender" and her argument that Obama voted against funding the troops? Biden rebutted the latter pretty well by citing a similar vote by McCain when a Democratic timetable was involved.

Palin let many of Biden's McCain-is-just-like-Bush attacks go unanswered, but that was clearly her strategy.

Journalists score debates differently than ordinary people. They know when each candidate has ducked or fudged key nuances (is Palin really as moderate as Biden on gay rights?). But average voters wonder about things like why McCain never looked at Obama. In that sense, Palin's poise, and her skill at playing to the camera, may count for more than any particular response.

On the other side, despite the snickers of the pundits, Biden was quite disciplined and avoided any gaffes.

Biden's best moment, by far: When he choked up at the end of the debate, recalling the car accident that killed his wife and almost killed his surviving sons, and related that to the struggles of everyday people. Palin failed to acknowledge the moment, instead going into happy talk about mavericks.

Oh, and if she doesn't like the media "filter," as she said, why not do some live interviews? I'm sure plenty of shows would be happy to accommodate her.

It was clear from the pundit reaction that Palin did herself a world of good.

She "did not embarrass herself or her running mate," Katie Couric said.

"Sarah Palin didn't freeze," said George Stephanopoulos.

"She was a better surrogate for the top of her ticket than Joe Biden was for his," Chuck Todd said.

Bill Kristol was more positive: "She utterly held her own."

But not as positive as Pat Buchanan: "Sensational. . . . She wiped up the floor with Joe Biden."

Gloria Borger noted that Palin "wasn't answering the questions directly."

Ignoring the questions? "Not much humility here," Chris Matthews said.

Rachel Maddow said Palin seemed "unemotional" and "inhuman" when she didn't acknowledge Biden's answer about his family tragedy. But she also found Biden "boring."

Andrea Mitchell's bottom line: "She was really becoming a drag on this ticket, and now she's stopped that bleeding."

CNN's insta-poll: Biden, 51 to 36.

CBS survey of uncommitted: Biden, 46 to 21.

Let's dip into the MSM, beginning with the L.A. Times:

"Sarah Palin entered the vice presidential debate in St. Louis tonight facing an electorate increasingly dubious about her readiness for the second-highest office in the nation.

"With a relatively steady performance, the Alaska governor may have helped arrest voters' declining confidence in her candidacy since John McCain first put her on the Republican ticket five weeks ago."

N.Y. Times: "Gov. Sarah Palin made it through the vice-presidential debate on Thursday without doing any obvious damage to the Republican presidential ticket. By surviving her encounter with Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. and quelling some of the talk about her basic qualifications for high office, she may even have done Senator John McCain a bit of good, freeing him to focus on the other troubles shadowing his campaign."

USA Today: "Palin smiled at the camera, winked at the audience and offered a 'shout-out' to her brother's third-grade class at Gladys Wood Elementary School . . . Biden was more serious and senatorial, focused on policy questions he repeatedly referred to as 'fundamental.' "

Washington Post: "One debate will not erase doubts that have been building about Palin's capacity to serve as vice president, but the effect of the encounter may shift the focus away from the sideshow that Palin has become and put it back on the two presidential nominees and what they would do for the country."

Washington Times: "From her opening greeting to her Democratic opponent in the vice-presidential debate -- 'Hey, can I call you Joe?' -- to her pledge to deliver 'straight talk' to voters, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin never looked out of her depth."

New York Post: "Sarah Palin used folksy language, winks, smiles and sharp elbows to try to put seasoned rival Joe Biden on the defensive in last night's vice-presidential debate."

Roger Simon: "She not only kept Joe Biden on the defensive for much of the debate, she not only repeatedly attacked Barack Obama, but she looked like she was enjoying herself while doing it."

Atlantic's Marc Ambinder: "It was a wash . . . when it comes to worrying about Palin, the McCain campaign can now exhale . . . Though, on paper, Palin said some weird things in weird ways ( expanding the power of the vice presidency??), she did nothing negatively indelibly memorable, and, at times, was positively impressive."

National Review's Kathryn Jean Lopez: "Sarah Palin won this debate and puts the campaign in a great position to rail against the media. Whatever she did before this debate -- prayed? -- is what she should always fall back on. . . . Sarah Palin is the breath of fresh air on the political scene so many hoped she is."

New Republic's Michael Crowley: "Expectations were very low for Palin and she exceeded them. She had a fair number of wobbly moments, but no real viral YouTube moment that struck me. . . . Biden was about right -- neither too hot nor too cold. His points sometimes digressed more than Palin's, but what he lacked in crispness he made up for in stature and confidence."

Andrew Sullivan: "Palin's inability to answer real questions, her capacity to avoid follow-ups, her slightly manic quality, and her inability to relate to working class voters came across. Biden did not talk too much; he made no sexist gaffes; he didn't appear to be overweening; he seemed like a nice guy. I think she managed to avoid a tailspin; he reassured. It will stem the GOP collapse a little. But it won't change the race."

Slate's Christopher Beam: "Palin demonstrated a knack for answering the question she wanted to answer -- not the one that was asked. . . . The strategy worked. Palin kept the conversation on her turf, avoided follow-ups, and came across both forceful and charming."

Time's Jim Poniewozik: "Biden didn't call Palin an offensive name; Palin didn't do Tina Fey doing Tina Palin."

Now for some pre-debate posts. In Slate, Emily Bazelon admits to mixed feelings about Palin's stumbles and bumbles:

"When Palin tanks, it's good for the country if you want Obama and Biden to win, but it's bad for the future of women in national politics. I'm in this boat, too. Should we feel sorry for Sarah Palin? No. But if she fails miserably, we might be excused for feeling a bit sorry for ourselves.

"Palin is the most prominent woman on the political stage at the moment. By taking unprepared hesitancy and lack of preparation to a sentence-stopping level, she's yanking us back to the old assumption that women can't hack it at these heights. We know that's not true -- we've just watched Hillary Clinton power through a campaign with a masterful grasp of policy and detail. Clinton lost in part because she was the girl grind. Complex sentences, the names of Supreme Court cases, and bizarre warnings about foreign heads of state invading our airspace weren't her problem. The fear now is that Palin is the anti-Hillary and that her lack of competence threatens to undo what the Democratic primary did for women. Palin won't bust through the ceiling that has Hillary's 18 million cracks in it. She'll give men an excuse to replace it with a new one . . .

"As Rebecca Traister points out in Salon, there's an obvious feminist comeback here. Shut down the 'Palin pity party,' Traister urges. 'Shaking our heads and wringing our hands in sympathy with Sarah Palin is a disservice to every woman who has ever been unfairly dismissed based on her gender, because this is an utterly fair dismissal, based on an utter lack of ability and readiness.' Good point. . . . Traister's argument refutes the McCain campaign's effort to spin the justified attacks on Palin as sexism. The campaign can't dismiss Palin's critics as sexist for jumping on her thin, stock-phrase-laden answers to reasonable questions. It would be sexist -- and destructive for the country -- to demand less . . .

"When I watch Palin, I can't help but cringe. . . . Call it women's solidarity, however misplaced. I keep coming back to this prim phrase: Please, don't make a spectacle of yourself."

For all the talk about McCain's zigging and zagging the past two weeks, there's been less focus on Obama's style. Joe Klein gives props in Time:

"We journalists have an extensive vocabulary for cataloging the failures of politicians and a skimpy one for celebrating their successes. It's safer to be skeptical: no one will ever accuse you of being in the tank. And so we've heard lots, in a negative way, about Obama's coolness and intellectuality. And at times in this campaign -- during Hillary Clinton's populist transformation, after Sarah Palin's convention speech -- Obama's demeanor has seemed problematic. He was too remote, too cerebral and nuanced in his answers, it was said; he had to get warmer, learn to love junk food, practice his bowling. But Obama stubbornly remained himself through the tough times; his preternatural calm has proved reassuring in both the economic crisis and the first debate . . .

"Part of Obama's steadiness is born of necessity: An angry, or flashy, black man isn't going to be elected President. But I've also gotten the sense, in the times I've interviewed and chatted with him, that calm is Obama's natural default position. He is friendly, informal, accessible . . . and a mystery, hard to get to know. He doesn't give away much, doesn't -- unlike Bill Clinton -- have that desperate need to make you like him . . .

"This guy is the furthest thing imaginable from an extremist; McCain, by his own admission, is the bomb-thrower in this race."

Marc Ambinder also assesses the demeanor question:

"If there's one thing that worries Republican strategists more than the polls today, even more than the listlessness of the Republican Party, it is that Sen. McCain seems flustered, angry, inconsistent-in-tone, and his campaign seems angry and off-kilter. His refusal to look at Obama during last week's debate was evident in just about every clip.

"The press is starting to pick up the theme, and the stock response to this is: he has every right to be angry when the media is cheering for Obama and the Bush administration messed everything up. That's true -- and inadequate. It's not working for the campaign. They had a basic strategy: make the race about Obama. Well, the race is now about the economy. And, as predicted, there's more curiosity about Sarah Palin than about Obama. Compare this to Democratic strategists who worried that Obama wasn't fighting back hard enough. Turns out that Obama didn't need to -- events took care of the problem."

Columnists, it turns out, have long memories. Three years ago, Paul Krugman says now, he wrote that the air was hissing out of the housing bubble, prompting "this delightful screed from Power Line, which says that I was just looking for something to complain about amidst the Bush Boom."

At the time, Power Line's John Hinderaker proclaimed:

"It must be depressing to be Paul Krugman. No matter how well the economy performs, Krugman's bitter vendetta against the Bush administration requires him to hunt for the black lining in a sky full of silvery clouds."

Hinderaker's response: "If I was wrong -- that is, if the current decline in house prices constitutes a 'catastrophic collapse' -- then I had a lot of company: Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Franklin Raines, Jim Johnson, the managers of Lehman Brothers, AIG and Bear Stearns, and countless others. It's quite flattering that out of this distinguished company, Krugman singled me out as the one person who was wrong in disagreeing with his prediction of 'catastrophic collapse.' "

That's the kind of honor we could all do without.