Palin Prelude

Long weekend. Took a bit out of me. Caught the debate, ate some chili, got absolutely savaged by some tick like creatures, and hung out at the most unlikely of places!

So I have been a little slow on the post-debate commentary. For what it is worth, I actually thought it was a pretty good debate. Devoid of most of the histrionics that have characterized past "good" debates. Not many consumable sound bites, but a decent amount of insight into the ideology of the men who seek to occupy the highest office in the land.

By and large I thought the evening was a draw at best. Depending on which parts you weighted more heavily, I could see a compelling argument for either having narrowly "won". If economics was your primary concern, I could see you pointing to Senator Obama as the victor, if your greatest concern was world instability, I could see how one might look at the concise pronouncements of Senator McCain on foreign powers and feel a sense of reassurance. That all being said, make no mistake. A draw on the "Foriegn Policy" debate with John McCain is a win for Obama. Senator McCain was obviously trying to show his opponent for the political neophyte that he thinks he is. Senator Obama did not come off as that at all. So in that regard, McCain's major message in the debate failed to find any purchase.

I was obviously watching the debate differently then most viewers. I was weighing each argument on its merits. The average voter was much more focused. They listened more intently to the economic sections, and by extension felt Obama did much better. When you couple that with the off putting demeanor of Senator McCain and you get a generally beneficial evening for Obama. To most of the audience watching he crossed the presidential threshold. He came off as knowledgeable on a wide variety of topics despite McCain's protesting to the contrary.

In that context the meeting between Gov. Palin and Sen. Binden, ought to be interesting. Seeing as this will be Gov. Palin's first "adversarial" engagement this campaign season. It should be at least informative on her thought process.


-cheers