The Joe Plumber Show

There is no doubt this was John McCain's best debate.

He looked and sounded a little like he had somehow been sedated, and his incessant grinning was still somewhat off-putting. But the sedation worked for him, combined with a controlled aggression we have not seen before. He actually sounded fairly reasonable much of the time, although I thought his handling of the abortion questions could have been much more empathetic.

Obama by contrast carried himself well, but it seemed like he was always yielding the last word to his opponent. Watching him try to address Sarah Palin was agonizing- you could tell he desperately wanted to say a bunch of very impolitic things. Although Obama does get extra points for not taking notes- that's impressive. I will also say, I never want to play cards with this guy.

I don't know what the insta-polls will say, but I give this exchange to McCain, if for no other reason than I was starting to doubt he was still capable of sustaining nuanced argument.

The larger question- does it matter? If McCain could somehow transform the tenor of his performance tonight into, I dunno, a campaign, he might really have something. It seems rather late for that pivot, however. I doubt Palin could deliver this kind of message. And I don't think McCain managed to land any blows capable of producing the historic soundbite that might turn the campaign. There just isn't much new ground to cover at this point- I'll be interested to see how many people even watched this one, or just plan to tune in to find out the "winner" in the morning.

Even if McCain does come off as the consensus victor tonight, it will remain one bright spot in the sea of difficulty on which he is adrift. I've no doubt McCain impressed the people who were already voting for him. I guess we all wait to see if he impressed anyone else.

Pre-Debate III

So we stand on the brink of the Third Debate. The final debate. Perhaps the McPalin campaign's last chance to turn away from their increasingly flailing campaign and pull together a coherent narrative to run through the next few weeks. I've already stated that I think the failure of the first bailout plan to immediately right the financial world effectively doomed the McCain campaign, and if he's going to make me fall on my keyboard, eat humble verbiage, etc. very early in the morning of 5 November, this could well be his last chance.

Don't take my word for it- conservative and liberal pundits alike pile on: Huffpo points out that the combination of negative ads and the prolonged economic crisis are driving Obama to double digit leads. Kathleen Parker suggests that Palin was the fatal flaw, and then admits on last night's Colbert Report that her White House contacts agree. Matthew Dowd, chief political strategist for Bush-Cheney '04, suggests that the selection of Palin has endangered the country. The New Republic offers this "pre-mortem" for McPalin. And of course, the now-classic William Kristol piece that led the charge, suggesting that McCain should stabilize his campaign...by firing his staff.

The remarkable thing about the above sampling of an increasingly crowded field is that so many of the people in it are archly conservative, or even work for the Republican party. As the Right turns on its own, Obama's job just gets easier. All he has to do is keep marking time. As I said starting out, tomorrow night might well be the last chance for McCain to destabilize the trends running ever more solidly against him. But lets be clear about that- he needs to win the debate, and to do that at this point would require the sort of performance that would immediately enter the annals of American politics a la Kennedy-Nixon. It's not impossible. But it is analogous to recovering an onside kick, then forcing a fumble, and running en effective enough offense to recover from a 10 point deficit in the fourth quarter. With each passing day reinforcing positive impressions of and voter support for Obama, the odds just keeps getting longer.

And of course, we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that the person most deeply tarnished by current conditions is the sitting president. Gideon Rachman of the FT pens this piece, evaluating the performances of various European leaders which comparison to President Bush. Who says the world doesn't benefit from the trans-Atlantic alliance?

Debates Were Held

An interesting article from CNN lays out the differences in Biden and Palin’s speaking styles from the debate. What struck me the most was this:

The analysis by the Austin, Texas-based Global Language Monitor said Palin, governor of Alaska and the GOP vice presidential nominee, used the passive voice in 8 percent of her sentences, far more than the 5 percent used by the Democratic senator from Delaware.

The analysis noted that the "passive voice can be used to deflect responsibility; Biden used active voice when referring to [Vice President Dick] Cheney and [President] Bush; Palin countered with passive deflections."

Passive voice, as they mention, is used to obscure the subject of a sentence: “Mistakes were made.” I’m not saying who made the mistakes, but there they are and we should move on without belaboring the point. I’m no great statistician, but it seems odd to me that 8% is really “far more” than the 5% that Biden used. What’s more interesting, the article implies, is the way that Palin used the passive voice to avoid mentioning George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. I know that Republicans are going out of their way to avoid being associated with the one time leader of their cult of personality, but isn’t it interesting that even Palin would resort to eliding their existence grammatically rather than have to deal with the consequences of eight years of Republican leadership? Actions and consequences, it seems, were referred to.

Contest in a Teacup

There is no doubt that according to the Oxford Rules, Sarah Palin had her lipstick handed to her last night by Joe Biden. The trouble is that the debate isn't run according to the well established conventions of that august body, and I suspect she did better with much of the audience not answering questions the way the moderator asked them than those of us blogging about it would care to believe.

However, it remains to be seen whether or not that matters anymore. Nothing she did last night seems likely to have advanced the McPalin campaign very much relative to Obiden, although she certainly could have contributed to losing it with another Couric-level debacle. On the morning after, all the anticipation of the Biden-Palin exchange seems curiously misplaced.

So we are left back where we were at this time yesterday, with I am guessing a small polling correction in McCain's favor as Palin demonstrates she is at least capable of memorizing talking points. If McCain is to have any hope of turning the election around, with the polls running against him and his campaign withdrawing from Michigan, we can expect increasingly desperate tactics as he tries to find something that will stick (other than attempting to expropriate the Obama campaign). We can also expect some sort of especially sleazy bombshells are being laid up for the 72 hours before voting day, although even that tactical chestnut may be mitigated by the fact that so many states are moving to early voting periods.

Palin probably reinforced her standing with Republicans last night, did no harm with independents, but failed to repeat the infusion of energy and purpose that accompanied her conference address. McCain needs something more consequential if he hopes to turn around the polling trends of the last two weeks.

Exceeding Expectations and Other Low Hanging Fruit

The debate last night proceeded pretty much exactly as I thought. Palin’s performance was uninspired and uninspiring unless you are already in the bag for the governor of Alaska. I think the conventional reaction so far has been pretty dead on. Palin clearly has little to no understanding of matters foreign or domestic. The format last night was a great favor to her. When Palin got into trouble with Couric and Gibson was on the follow up questions, where she was expected to rephrase and explain ideas and thoughts that she had learned by rote. The format last night gave her the opportunity to simply recite the talking points that have been carefully drilled into her, even if those rote responses didn’t answer the question that had been asked her. She didn’t fall down or drool on herself and I have no doubt that this will be the last time we see her in any setting that is not a stump speech in front of a carefully vetted crowd. There’s no margin for the McCain campaign in putting her out there – she can only make herself look like a fool.

I thought Joe Biden’s performance, especially in the early going, was uninspired. As the debate wore on, I felt he picked up steam and really got into the moment. He certainly “won” the debate on the merits, but this was never about “winning.” Everyone knows Biden is worlds smarter and more informed than Palin. All Palin had to do was do better than the exceedingly low expectations set for her. Mission accomplished.

Barring some sort of unforeseen disaster, I think Palin has stopped being a factor in the race. Not that she should, of course. But once the McCain campaign pulls the curtain in front of her, what is the media going to do? I can’t see them going into open revolt on one of the major party candidates a month before the election. I also think the rumors of Bristol Palin’s wedding happening before the election are absurd. There’s simply no way the McCain camp will want to put the spotlight back on her now that they’ve cleared this hurdle.

Arguments and Expectations

Tonight’s the big debate. I’m looking forward to checking it out, although it’ll be on at about four o’clock in the morning here, so I’ll likely have to wait until tomorrow to see tonight’s debate. There are a lot of issues in play – Gwen Ifill, the specter of the big, old white guy picking on the attractive young(er) woman. I think, however, anyone expecting a kind of nationally televised schadenfruede-fueled meltdown is going to be disappointed. I agree with James Fallows who thinks that the expectations for Palin are so low that any performance she turns in that doesn’t include drooling and pratfalls is going to be treated as a victory over expectations. I don’t think this means Palin is going to deliver anything close to a successful performance – or even a coherent one – but I do think she’s going to do better than every expects.

Palin will get up there, read through her talking points, and that will be the end of it. Republicans will claim that Ifill was being overly harsh on the governor and that, regardless, Palin’s poor performance so far was all liberal media bias to begin with.

An Obama Wind

According to almost every poll imaginable, Obama is pulling into substantial leads in Florida and Ohio, and pulling ahead in a number of other states. Some numbers with explanation at Huffpo, and just reams of data for those of that persuasion here at RCP.

I think the interesting thing about the second link is that, I believe for the first time, Obama-Biden run the board, ahead in every poll. It's an awful lot of blue in that column.

Of course, the next debate is tomorrow, and while they are usually important, the relatively controlled nature of access to McPalin has infused them with increasing significance this year. One has to assume that each of them will result in relatively energetic adjustments to the numbers. One also has to assume that McCain won't get many more opportunities to do anything so stupid as suspend his campaign again in the next 34 days. But then, it's probably too late already- according to the Perot Doctrine, suspending your campaign at all is the kiss of death.

The First Debate

I have a hard time caring much about debates as such. For the most part, the candidates have both solidified their talking points to such an extent that there’s not much else to be said by the time the debates roll around. Debates exist mostly for those who haven’t paid attention, and I’ve always found that curious. How can they know whether or not the candidates are being truthful, are presenting themselves in an accurate way? If you haven’t paid attention up until now, what’s the point in tuning in at this point?

All that being said, having watched it from last night, I have to say I think Obama came off the better of the two. This is not surprising, as I think Obama would make a good president and John McCain is a crazy old man. It doesn’t make much difference to me how the two perform – I know where the two stand on the issues I care about. I have my problems with Obama in a lot of respects (he’s more hawkish than I would prefer), but there really isn’t a comparison with McCain – he’s wrong on pretty much all the issues, he is a dangerous personality, loves war and has little interest in or aptitude for domestic policy questions, which would leave his administration open to the hands of the extreme right wing of his party.

McCain’s performance reinforced a great deal of that last night. He was exacerbated where Obama was civil and calm, he was arrogant, dismissive and rude while Obama should him a great deal of deference, probably more than was warranted. If the primary question was, “Will McCain act like a crazy person?” and “Is Obama experienced enough?” both of them walked away with a strong performances. But while McCain didn’t hit anyone or randomly suspend the debate, Obama had a good night. Solid, competent and boring. After eight years of George W. Bush, I think Solid, competent and boring sounds just about right.

The real fireworks, of course, come next week. The vice presidential debates should be one of the more noteworthy presidential election events of the last twenty-five years. I doubt that Palin will do as spectacularly bad as many progressives (and conservatives) are expecting. If you’re predisposed towards seeing her in a positive light, she’ll do surprisingly well. If you’re inclined the other way, she’s going to choke. But right now the expectations for her are so exceedingly low that I wouldn’t be surprised if she did better than I would expect. As long as she doesn’t come out and burst into tears she’ll be on the winning side of expectations.

You Put Your Right Foot In...

So McC is back in.

It's hardly surprising. By all that is just, the national media had better hold him over the coals with regard to the whiplash-inducing events of the last couple days.

One has to wonder to what degree all this flying to DC has disrupted the candidates' preparations for the debates, to say nothing of the negotiations to, you know, save the economy.

We await the judgment of the three-day tracking...conveniently summarized here.