People have been asking me whether I watched the debate between Sarah Palin and Joe Biden, and if so what I thought about it. The answer to the first question is "yes." As to the second question, here's what I thought:
1. Sarah Palin doesn't really talk like that, you know: "say it ain't so Joe" and "doggoneit Joe thereya go lookin to tha past" and "heckuva" and . . . "dontcha" and . . ."gonna." She may feel comfortable speaking in this register, but it is *clearly* a performance to influence less affluent voters.
2. Sarah Palin doesn't answer questions not because she is not able to, but because she has not been prepared to. In other words, her responses are scripted. You can literally see her searching through her memorized notes to remember what to say if Joe Biden said ______. Notice how many times she said "I'd like to go back to ________" as if she knew she would get in trouble for not making a point she had practiced so hard to learn. Biden on the other hand responded to her pretty fluidly. That doesn't mean he is better, it just means he is more experienced with this type of thing.
3. It's difficult for me to stomach the claim that she did well ... based on what standard, I wonder? Based on the low standard she set with Katie Couric?
4. I love her effort to spin what she can't control, e.g. "I love debates like this where I can tell the people what I stand for, and not have someone mediate what I have said after the clip." Yeah, I'm gonna haveta go with "notsomuch" Sarah. You may have said some smart things on camera that didn't get shown, but the media cannot script the crazy trainwrecks that have been your one on one interviews. Go consult Howard Dean on the impossibility of gaining control over stupid political blunders.
5. Joe Biden was interesting, not who the media prepared him to be. Instead of taking her on, he smiled at her jokes. And why shouldn't he, she is endearing. At the same time, I don't know what to do with his emotional eruptions when he talks about being a single father. I am not so much disturbed by a man expressing emotion, or suggesting that he shouldn't be emotional about losing his wife, child, and nearly losing his other children. I have to wonder, though, how many times he has told this story in a political context and why he acts as if the wound is still fresh. Feels a little melodramatic and "rhetorical" (in the bad sense) for me, but I am insensitive, sorry.
6. I ran into this this week and though it was really intersting, you all should check it out: http://rsa.cwrl.utexas.edu/node/2438
Lawrence Lessig, for those who don't know, is a renowned copyright lawyer and law professor at Stanford.
7. I think we should be excited to welcome Barack Obama into the White House and start spending lots of money on his security. The parallels that are being drawn between him and JFK in the media are so thick that it is cause for concern. I am not so much worried about someone attempting to hurt him based on his race. I am worried that a JFK fetishist will try to hurt him in order to produce a similar legacy.
For what it's worth,
K
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