"So, you thought you'd seen the last of me, huh?
Sarah Palin came into last night's debate needing a win badly, and she succeeded admirably.
America got to see her live and in person for ninety minutes, without the selective editing of the dinosaur media and by and large, they liked what they saw.
After her nomination, the Democrats and their trained seals in the dinosaur media relentlessly attacked her and her family as a bunch of breeder hicks from America's outback to the point where people who saw her acceptance were initially awed that she had all her teeth and could put together two complete sentences, let alone deliver an inspiring barnburner of a speech.
They made the same mistake in the weeks leading up to the Veep debate..and it blew up in their faces once again. Here's ace pollster Frank Luntz talking to a focus group of undecided voters he assembled to watch the debate:
What essentially happened is that Governor Palin walked in to this debate with her own agenda. She had some things she wanted to say to the American people,and she chose to do that regardless of the way Gwen Ifill tried to box in the debate according to Ifill's agenda.
That can be a risky tactic in a debate like this, but she made it work, even if she let Joe Biden get away with some pretty egregious whoppers, like the one about 95% of Americans not getting their taxes raised or about meeting Ahmadinejad without preconditions.. something that's still on Obama's website:
Ifill, as I predicted was out to torpedo Palin, although since her blatant conflict of interest was exposed prior to the debate she needed to be more subtle about it than she might otherwise have been. There was not on single question on abortion, on guns or on energy until Palin brought it up in a response on a totally unrelated question. The one time Palin fell into a trap was on the question of the Constitutional basis of the Vice President's powers. Palin, in fact was totally correct about that, but it gave Biden a chance to rail against Bush and especially Dick Cheney, who this ridiculous hack had the gall to label `the most dangerous vice president in American history.'
Palin was also assisted by Biden's demeanor. As caught on the split screen, his attitude when Governor Palin was speaking seemed condescending and dismissive. Maybe that's what I wanted to find there, but it definitely came across on the screen and I'm by no means the only one who noticed it.
In contrast, Palin came across as genuine, speaking directly to her audience and presenting a populist message that resonated with main street. Biden never had a chance...and even grumpy Peggy Noonan, hardly a Palin fan, had to admit it:
Drudge caught this as well:
{{{{DRUDGE POLL}}}} WHO WON THE VICE PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE?...
BIDEN
28% 142,885
PALIN
70% 350,646
NEITHER
2% 9,307
Total Votes: 502,838
Even MSNBC's viewers only gave Biden the win by 52% to about 39% for Palin. And the AOL live poll, with 525,786 respondants called it for Palin as well, 47% to 45%. Splitting th edifference, roughly 60-40 for Palin.
The upshot? The McCain campaign can expect a slight bounce from this, maybe 2%. It's nice but a lot will depend on how McCain does in the next debates, how the McCain campaign conducts itself in the next four weeks and on events outside the campaign itself.
One positive side is that one of my notorious little birdies told me that McCain is apparently going to take off the gloves and rip into the Democrats for their blatant protection of the cronyism and mismanagement at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac once the bail out bill is passed.With all the anger among average Americans over this, I think it's a winner...
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