Quick thoughts on the Biden-Palin debate (UPDATE)

I admit to pre-debate nervousness.  I admit to thinking that if Sarah was 'off' in any way, given that she is the fire that heats up the McCain campaign, then it'd be over.  I admit to believing that Sarah had to be feeling the pressure.  I admit to wondering if she could handle it.

She did.

She held her own.  She was poised yet folksy.  She was confident and convincing.  I'd have liked her to attack (and counterattack) more but clearly she had a strategy aimed at reaching the undecided while Biden seemed hell-bent in re-convincing the Democratic base (as if they were going somewhere else).

Sarah Palin did great.  The people making up Frank Luntz' focus group of undecided voters on Fox News were convinced that she won the debate and a number of them moved to the decided camp.

My hope is that it's indicative of movement toward McCain.  Luntz seemed to suggest that it would be.

It's too bad we can't get more of Sarah Palin unplugged.  She mentioned the main stream media and their filtration system and clearly she gives an impression that's far more positive than that we're exposed to under the tight controls offered by the likes of ABC and CBS.

Hats off to the woman. 

For someone who's been on the national stage for less than 2 months and when you think of Biden's 30+ years in D.C. in comparison, she kicked his smug ass.

More to come. 

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin:

Sarah Palin is the real deal. Five weeks on the campaign trail, thrust onto the national stage, she rocked tonight’s debate.

She was warm, fresh, funny, confident, energetic, personable, relentless, and on message. She roasted Obama’s flip-flops on the surge and tea-with-dictators declarations, dinged Biden’s bash-Bush rhetoric, challenged the blame-America defeatism of the Left, and exuded the sunny optimism that energized the base in the first place.

McCain has not done many things right. But Sarah Palin proved tonight that the VP risk he took was worth it.

Her performance also underscored the underhandedness of the hatchet job editors at ABC News and CBS News, which failed to capture her solid competence on the whole array of foreign and domestic policy issues on the debate table tonight. (I didn’t care for all the “greed” rhetoric, but I understand they are trying to appeal to independents and Dems. They’re trying to win the election.)

Pause to reflect on this: She matched — and trumped several times — a man who has spent his entire adult life on the political stage, run for president twice, and as he mentioned several times, chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Sarah Palin looked presidential.

The Anchoress:

Sarah Palin unfiltered, is a force to be reckoned with.

Morgan:

Gov. Palin was liberated from her talking points. She wasn’t excellent, but she was much better than people thought she would have been.

Locutisprime:

This debate wasn't Godzilla versus Rodan, nor was it really a David versus Goliath contest of either wills or platforms or clashing styles of representation. It was more of Elly Mae meets Mr. Drysdale to me and in the aftermath of the confrontation Mr. Drysdale once again walked away knowing that he had not been successful in trying to win out against simple down to earth principles.

Patrick Ruffini:

Sarah Palin was sharp, articulate, and connected with the middle class. The #1 political effect tonight will have is an important one for the McCain campaign: she shut the doubters up, and then some. In this important sense, she stopped the bleeding. I suspect that a very tough couple of weeks ends tonight, and it will be up to John McCain to get the comeback going next Tuesday.

Comments

[Locutisprime]

I wrote a piece in my blog about it this morning. I saw it as Elly Mae meets Mr. Drysdale, and Mr. Drysdale loses once again to folksy common sense and an inability to argue against reason.

[Mommynator]

I guess it's the combativeness in me, but I really really really wanted her to come out punching more and expose Joe Biden for the slimy liar he is, especially talking about McCain's vote against one of two military funding bills that was total crap. This was discussed extensively at Blackfive.

And I'm sure there were more things like that that she didn't call him on, which was frustrating for me.

She was personable, she was articulate, etc., and that was a relief and a blessing.

[chuck aka xtnyoda]

Sarah was good...but after last night it seemed evident to me that McCain is going to have to win this election for McCain, he isn't going to be able to ride into the White House on Sarah's skirt tails.

This just seems to be the reality to me.

[chuck aka XtnYoda]

Palin unleashed on a FOX interview today, about the debate last night...

[Palin told Carl that she was “annoyed” at some of the interviews she has done, “Ok I’ll tell you honestly the Sarah Palin in those interviews is a little bit annoyed because it’s man no matter what you say you are going to get clobbered. If you choose to answer a question you are going to get clobbered on the answer,” Palin said. “If you choose to try and pivot and go on to another subject that you believe that Americans want to hear about you get clobbered for that too.”

She then aimed to defend herself for some of the criticism she got for the Couric interview. She was blasted for not answering Couric’s question on any of the periodicals she reads or even a Supreme Court decision that she disagreed with. She defended some of the circular answers she gave the CBS anchor saying that she did not get to cover some of the topics she saw as important, “But in those Katie Couric interviews I did feel that there were a lot of things that she was missing in terms of an opportunity to ask what a V.P. candidate stands for. What the values are represented in our ticket. I wanted to talk about Barack Obama increasing taxes, which would lead to killing jobs. I wanted to talk about his proposal to increase government spending by another trillion dollars.”

She then slammed Barack Obama calling him disqualified to be President of the United States, “Some of his comments that he has made about the war that I think may — in my world– disqualifies someone from consideration as the next commander in chief.” Palin said, “Some of his comments about Afghanistan and what we are doing there supposedly– just air raiding villages and killing civilians. That’s reckless. So I wanted to talk about things like that. So I guess I have to apologize about being a little annoyed, but that is also an indication of being outside that Washington elite and being outside the media elite also and just wanting to talk and just wanting to talk to Americans without the filter and let them know what we stand for.”]

Obama disqualified to be Commander in Chief...that's some pretty straight forward talk that will probably be aired on the networks!

[chuck aka XtnYoda]

Sorry, here's the link to the news report.

http://embeds.blogs.foxnews.com/2008/10/03/cameron-interviews-post-debate-palin/