Biden VS Palin:Who Will "Win" VP Debate?

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-08-2008
Biden VS Palin:Who Will "Win" VP Debate?
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Sun, 09-28-2008 - 5:00am

http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20080927/pl_politico/14014

Obama campaign calls Palin 'a terrific debater' Mike Allen
Sat Sep 27, 11:47 AM ET

Obama campaign manager David Plouffe told reporters Saturday that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican vice presidential nominee, is “a terrific debater” who could give Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joe Biden (D-Del.) a run for his money when they meet Thursday.


“We’ve looked at tapes of Gov. Palin’s debates, and she’s a terrific debater,” Plouffe told reporters on a conference call. “She has performed very, very well. She’s obviously a skilled speaker. We expect she’ll give a great performance next Thursday. “

The single vice presidential debate will be at 9 p.m. Eastern on Thursday at Washington University in St. Louis.

Lowering expectations is a common campaign practice before a debate. But the Obama campaign's claims will surprise the Republicans who have begun to fear the debate following Palin’s performance in network interviews. The Obama campaign says they have nothing to worry about.

Some Democrats were worried that Biden would have to hold back to avoid running up the score. But they shouldn’t fret, either.

“She’s obviously prepping this weekend in Pennsylvania,” Plouffe continued. “Anyone who watches any of her previous debates would be impressed by her debating skills.”

Obama national press secretary Bill Burton added: “What’s missing is knowing where she stands on a lot of the important issues that will come up at the debate. Preparing to debate against someone who is really largely unknown, who’s spent so much time preparing for the debate, will be a real challenge.

“She’s not out there on the stump that much. She’s not doing a whole lot of interviews. So she’s spending a whole lot of time — hours and hours a day, apparently — preparing for this debate. And we suspect that she’ll come in fighting form.”

Plouffe also said:

— On the McCain ad mocking Obama for saying five times in Friday’s debate that McCain is “absolutely right”: “It’s the kind of ad only someone who’s spent 26 years in Washington would put out.”

— “The two candidates’ responses over the last couple of weeks may be seen as a turning point in the election. … He comes in … suggesting he’s riding in on his white horse, and kind of disrupts things. People are looking for steady leadership and not someone who’s chasing news cycles.”

— The tight economy could hurt the campaign’s fundraising: “We obviously understand that people are struggling … Their first priority needs to be trying to make sure that they can take care of their families. So, that being said, we’re very pleased with where we are financially. … It’ s not just the money — the volunteer hours that are happening now are really exploding . … We expect to be able to execute our budget.”

— On battleground states: “We don’t pay much attention to polls. We think this is a close election. So there’s not going to be that much volatility. … I wouldn’t expect any major movements.”

— “We like where we are in these battleground states. We think we strengthened the Kerry states in the last couple of weeks. We think states like Virginia, Colorado, Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Indiana, Missouri – to name a few — have really become stronger for us in the last couple of week. I mean, obviously, John McCain can ill-afford to lose any of those.”

— “We think Florida’s going to be an absolutely dogfight until the end.”

— On the town hall format debate coming up Oct. 7 (a week from Tuesday) in Nashville, Tenn.: “Obviously, we will be a decided underdog in that encounter . … probably done more town halls than anyone in presidential political history. … If we can just escape relatively unscathed against the undisputed town-hall champion in Tennessee, we’ll be thrilled.”

— “For the people at home watching — who are working hard, economically distressed, worried about the future and focused very much on the economy — I think Barack Obama spoke to them last night. John McCain kind of spoke by them and engaged in a lot of Washington talk.”

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iVillage Member
Registered: 09-08-2008
Mon, 09-29-2008 - 3:14am


http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2008/09/27/Report_Bush_veterans_prep_Palin/UPI-13751222536498/

Report: Bush veterans prep Palin

Published: Sept. 27, 2008 at 1:28 PM

WASHINGTON, Sept. 27 (UPI) -- Advisers from the Bush administration are prepping Gov. Sarah Palin for her vice presidential debate with Sen. Joe Biden, U.S. political strategists say.

Palin's coaches are tough political operatives who helped George W. Bush become president of the United States, The Daily Telegraph reported Saturday.

For the sole vice presidential debate Oct. 2, the Alaska governor is being coached by Mark Wallace, Bush's deputy campaign manager in 2004 and Tucker Eskew, a Republican strategist at the forefront of Bush's primary battle in 2002 against Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the current Republican presidential nominee.

"There aren't a lot of experienced, skilled political operatives around who can work at the presidential level," said Republican strategist Mark McKinnon. "It would be very hard to put together a presidential team on the Republican side without hiring former Bush hands."

Palin has little foreign or federal policy experience while Biden, of Delaware, is a veteran senator and foreign policy expert.

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-08-2008
Mon, 09-29-2008 - 4:53am


Veep Debate Approaches As Conservatives Abandon Palin

September 28, 2008 02:30 PM

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/28/veep-debate-approaches-as_n_130040.html

While Sunday pundits offered up a modicum of critique toward some of Joe Biden's gaffiest moments of the week - like inventing the television early for Franklin Delano Roosevelt - stronger concern was directed at the GOP ticket, and the lousy week that Sarah Palin has had. Truth be told, once you got past the Friday debate and the ongoing financial crisis, the next biggest figure on the radar this Sunday was National Review's Kathleen Parker, who, amid a larger call for Palin to step down from the ticket of her own volition, admitted:

I've also noticed that I watch her interviews with the held breath of an anxious parent, my finger poised over the mute button in case it gets too painful. Unfortunately, it often does. My cringe reflex is exhausted.
Parker's been the leading voice of Palin concern - at least this week! The Politico notes a general air of concern among party officials, and there have been rumors of "disastrous" attempts at mock-debates and pretend-press conferences.

Of course, there's the old adage: "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all," which RADAR's Alex Balk notes is being twisted into something different for Palin: "If you must say something nice, do so on condition of anonymity." That's a trend Palin cannot afford to have continue.

Not to belabor the point, but Fareed Zakaria begins his column on the matter by saying: "Will someone please put Sarah Palin out of her agony?" Naturally, I only object to the "her agony" part.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Mon, 09-29-2008 - 11:07am

Palin has performed poorly in interviews therefore I'm not expecting an earth shattering debate style.


I'm sure Biden will over shadow her in the VP debate.

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iVillage Member
Registered: 09-25-2008
Mon, 09-29-2008 - 11:33am

Obama's crew are doing an age-old dance of trying to raise expectations for the opponent, while lowering them for your own guy. That way, unless it's as bad or worse for your own guy than you predicted, it will be seen as a victory, even if an observer who hadn't heard all the predictions might have called it a draw, or even a slight win for the OTHER guy.

McCain's doing it too - or, rather, Steve Schmidt is. Not much new or noteworthy about it, frankly.

In my personal opinion, Biden's got some landmines to look out for. Not as many as he would if he were Jim Webb, or someone who came into the debate with a lasting whiff of sexism already about him (justified or not). Biden doesn't really have that, so that'll make things not as hard for him as they could be. But make no mistake, McCain's people have been working very hard to have the "sexism" angle both ways to the middle. They wanted to try to glom onto what they perceived as the disaffected Hillary vote (which turned out to be not only a lot smaller but not nearly as disaffected as originally thought by most people).....but they also had to please the base. No nominating a Susan Collins or Olympia Snowe, two VERY qualified Republican women. They picked Sarah Palin to try to satisfy both the wingnut base AND try to woo the disaffected Hillary voters. And, while the former strategy seems to have worked (though even that is no longer as certain as it seemed only a week ago, what with notable departures from the reservation like that of Kathleen Parker, and others), the "disaffected Hillary voter" strategy was pretty much doomed to failure from the start, and doesn't look to be getting much better. Nominating Sarah Palin as a sort of female stand-in for Hillary Clinton is a bit like nominating Colonel Sanders to stand in for General Patton. People - including most of the supposed "disgruntled Hillary voters" just aren't buying it, as well they should not.

Biden's challenge in the debate on Thursday will be to highlight as strongly as possible the enormous chasm in experience and knowledge between them without hitting that third rail of sexism. And he doesn't just have to avoid BEING sexist (by any normal definition), he has to avoid giving the boffins in the RNC's war room, or at FAUX "News" any ammunition which they can TWIST into making it LOOK as if Biden was sexist. That's the real trick, because if one truly is NOT a sexist, one only has to follow one's own conscience and history to be OK. But you never know where a clever opinion-manipulator will be able to pull a quote out of context and/or twist its meaning practically inside-out to demonstrate "sexism." It will be false and ridiculous, of course, should such a thing emerge, but that won't stop them from utilizing it to its maximum effect, if they think they can get some "play" out of it with the media and/or the public. Sam Harris' recent Newsweek article had an excellent couple of lines describing an unrelated but very similar tactic, which is instructive to show how it works. Harris was speaking about how the GOP operatives, uh, operate, and said this:

"When it comes to politics, there is a mad love of mediocrity in this country. "They think they're better than you!" is the refrain that (highly competent and cynical) Republican strategists have set loose among the crowd, and the crowd has grown drunk on it once again."

And I think that's about perfect, whether they're cynically, with their own high-toned degrees and focus-group research, trying to gin up "they're elitists who think they're better than you" mob-think, or whether they're doing it with sexism.

Joe Biden is an excellent debater. I have no idea whether Sarah Palin is, having never seen the "old game reels" like the Obama campaign has. Her speech at the GOP convention showed that she can read a teleprompter well, and speak in public pretty well. But giving a prepared speech, though it's similar to debating in the sense that both are speaking in public, is more dissimilar from debating than similar to it, and I'm not sure the skill-set transfers: she will be drilled with talking points, just like Biden will, but she will be on her own out there, with no do-overs, no lifelines, and no net....much the same as she was during the Couric interview (and, for that matter, the Gibson and even Hannity interviews, as well). And in those instances, she fared noticeably - even stunningly - worse than she did when she had an actual script to read from. I think the success at the convention probably reflects only a familiarity with speaking in front of groups (which she would have had to acquire by now as a governor and mayor), and her skill and training as a TV talking head. But they don't train you to debate with one of the country's foremost experts on foreign policy as a reporter (certainly not a weather or sports reporter), nor as governor.

As long as Biden doesn't stumble, and remembers not to give the spin-meisters anything substantive to work with, he'll crush Palin, just as everyone (including the Obama campaign, whatever they may say as strategy right now in public) knows. The only question is how badly.




Ma, whenever ya see a cop beatin' a guy

Wherever a hungry new born baby cries

Wherever there's a fight against the blood and hatred in the air

Look for me ma'

I'll be there

Wherever somebody's strugglin' for a place to stand

For a decent job or a helpin' hand

Wherever somebody is strugglin' to be free

Look in their eyes ma,

You'll see me!


iVillage Member
Registered: 07-15-2008
Mon, 09-29-2008 - 11:36am

Just posted this on another thread and maybe you've seen it, but it's George Will and Newt Gingrinch talking about the "gamble" of Palin - a candid camera moment.

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-25-2008
Mon, 09-29-2008 - 11:46am

OUCH.

The guy on the left is Robert Reich, I think - looks like him. And yes, he was Secretary of the Labor during Clinton's first term.




Ma, whenever ya see a cop beatin' a guy

Wherever a hungry new born baby cries

Wherever there's a fight against the blood and hatred in the air

Look for me ma'

I'll be there

Wherever somebody's strugglin' for a place to stand

For a decent job or a helpin' hand

Wherever somebody is strugglin' to be free

Look in their eyes ma,

You'll see me!


iVillage Member
Registered: 08-29-2008
Mon, 09-29-2008 - 12:07pm

I never thought President Bush did well in any debate. I think they need to ditch these handlers and let Sarah be Sarah.

Also, I think she should not offer long answers and yield the balance of her time to Biden and just let him talk and talk. LOL! Give him enough rope and he always hangs himself!

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-25-2008
Mon, 09-29-2008 - 12:11pm
I think they need to ditch these handlers and let Sarah be Sarah.


Absolutely! I agree!

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-29-2008
Mon, 09-29-2008 - 12:13pm
It's hard to admit that you agree about Biden, too!
iVillage Member
Registered: 09-25-2008
Mon, 09-29-2008 - 12:22pm
Not at all; if I did agree, I'd say so. But although Joe Biden's certainly had his share of gaffes and statements I'm sure he wishes he could take back over the years, I don't consider him to be any more riddled with such things - despite the attempt by the right to portray him as such - than any other politician who's been at it as long as Biden has. The truth is that Biden IS very well-spoken in general, used to extemporaneous speaking as well as debating. Is there a possibility he'll commit some sort of truly awful gaffe? Sure there is....but I'd put the chance at about 1/8 the chance that Palin will do so....regardless of how long she talks for.



Ma, whenever ya see a cop beatin' a guy

Wherever a hungry new born baby cries

Wherever there's a fight against the blood and hatred in the air

Look for me ma'

I'll be there

Wherever somebody's strugglin' for a place to stand

For a decent job or a helpin' hand

Wherever somebody is strugglin' to be free

Look in their eyes ma,

You'll see me!


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