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Again, I know I'm not unbiased, but I have no problem in calling tonight's debate for Biden. Seriously, for the first half of the debate, Palin did not answer any of the questions she was asked. She probably was heavily prepped for the debate tonight, and she probably just spat out the things she rehearsed during the prep, regardless of its bearing.

In fairness, she recovered slightly in the second half.

The things that people were talking about Biden beforehand were, Can he vigorously debate without coming across as "mean" to Palin? Or will he come across as too afraid to challenge her? This ended up not being an issue at all. For one thing, Palin mostly sunk herself by not even answering the questions put to her. All Biden had to do was be on topic and rational, which he was. He also gave credit where credit was due, to other Republicans, and even McCain.

Possibly the debate's knockout blow.� Biden gets visibly chocked up talking about his dead wife and raising his sons by himself for five years (I think this clip is missing a bit of context for that).� Palin comes back with a "maverick" talking point.

I kind of feel that Biden did better against Palin than Obama did against McCain.

Part of it is the format. I don't think it's that "McCain is more comfortable in town hall formats" (well, maybe he is). I think McCain is "good" at, when he has the last turn to speak, taking advantage of Obama's inability to rebut to say some outrageous things (some of which were rebutted in previous debates, but if you say something enough, it's true). (In the last debate, McCain got the last word, too).

McCain's "my friends" habit was annoying. Thankfully, use of "main street" was down.


Specific issues:

What's the big deal about the "meeting with preconditions" stuff? What a bunch of pedantry and rhetoric. Cut to the heart of the matter, it has nothing to do with "preconditions" or "legitimizing" at all. The real issue is, do you use sanctions, or diplomacy? McCain apparently wants to use santictions to change his opposition's mind, then talk to them. Makes sense to me to use diplomacy, then sanctions (and diplomacy in the midst of sanctions), not the other way around. Point to Obama on policy, but I wish he could have explained it clearly like this.

Obama did clearly explain how the bailout could affect average people. That's a complicated issue and was probably not easy to do.

Tax cuts for the wealthy. Point to Obama and Biden on policy and rhetoric, for finally offering some justifications (fairness, etc). Somehow right wing ideology has dominated the way people talk about this stuff for so long. I always see people on the internet (they got it from Ayn Rand) say things like, "Being taxed is the government robbing you at the barrel of a gun", and people who are liberal try to wiggle around under that philosophy rather than reject it at its root. You don't have to speak about the issue on those terms.

It's hard to give anyone a point on theory on that issue. It's too complicated to sum up in a 2 minute answer session. My opinion is that it's not a theoretical issue, but that experience has shown that trickle down economics doesn't work. Free market advocates try to corner the debate by defining whatever the free market does as good. Now, a normal person might say that thousands of people losing jobs or homes is bad, but if it's the "market correcting itself", then it's good. The time line for it to correct itself or what happens in the meantime are not to be questioned


Wish Obama had more of a chance to respond to McCain saying that Obama will fine parents for not giving their kids health insurance. That's a new one.

If McCain is gonna have a spending freeze, then I'm not sure how he proposes to fund research for energy independence. I can speak with a little bit of authority on this. Several years ago, NREL, the national renewable energy laboratory, part of the department of energy, funded programs to research alternative and renewable energy. NREL also provided the oversight. Bush wanted to change the way this was done, so the plan was to shift to funding industry, then the industry would contract out to universities for research and development. This has pros and cons; after thinking for a minute, I don't want to go into the nitty gritty. My guess is that McCain's plan would be like a continuation of Bush's, focusing on industry rather than fundamental R&D, but unless this is one of the exceptions to the spending freeze, I guess he won't be funding industry, either. Maybe he plans on having renewable energy tax breaks or something.

A huge portion of the US budget is defense, and neither candidate spoke about cutting defense spending.



McCain says one thing his spending freeze wouldn't affect would be defense. Hey, if we admit that we can't fund social security and medicare like we used to, how about we slash defense to 0? Either than money can go to something useful. Or maybe with no defense, Canada would invade and annex us, and we'd have health care again. Win win.

Obama didn't talk about defense cuts, either. I guess he can't, since he has dreams of catching Bin Laden and even being the world's policeman again (Darfur, etc.)


McCain did an unbelievable dodge on social security. He was asked how he would fix it and said, "It's easy. We all know what to do. I've reached across the aisle..." And changed the subject. NO SPECIFICS. Well, Bush wanted to privatize social security, which a lot of (dare I say most) people did not want. So it's hardly obvious and easy.

One suggestion I've heard raised by private citizens (and not -- and probably never -- by politicians) is to eliminate social security payments to retirees who are rich.