Thoughts On Palin / Biden Debate

I went to a debate party tonight. (Actually this afternoon there was lots of beer at this event so hence no Louisiana Catholic blog update today). So here are my thoughts

(1.) I did some post a long time ago on why Jindal or Palin should not be McCain's VP. Among one of my chief reasons was I knew both were a tad green and there would be a stumble. A stumble that Palin has had in recent weeks. Now I knew Palin (or for that matter Jindal) could recover. However I was not sure all the conservative pundits that so exhibit heir wisdom every second for us to see would weather it. Conservative pundits in the media or on the blogs want to be popular so constantly they shift with the winds. I think it was very interesting to see which people who wanted to bail way too quickly on Palin. There are conservatives that do not like Palin. This is very well hidden at times but I can't help but note some of the is "authentic" conservatives seemed to be the first that wanted to bail on her.

(2) I thought Palin did very very very well. These interviews and especially these debates are a tad political theatre. I am amazed how many people that offer advice have such short attention spans. Part of it is that they forget that all the major players had stumbles in the last year. Of course no one was paying attention when McCain or Obama had just one huge disaster at the Farm Bureau Forum in Iowa or did a horrible interview back in July on MSNBC. The fact that Palin looked so well tonight without going through all that shows real natural political instinct.

(3) Who won? Well Both Biden and Palin but in the larger scheme of things Palin. No one tuned into tonight to see how Biden would do. People were tuning into how Palin would do. While Biden was very very lose with the facts at times his major issue was to do no harm. He did not. Biden is weird duck. He is liberal as get out but often conservatives mention they like Biden. He is sort of goofy at times, good hearted, and different sort of duck. Biden did himself no harm.

However Palin beat the expectation game by a mile and I think Americans sort of know what is going on. Does she have good instinct and is she a good and quick study? I think the answer is yes. It would indeed be interesting now that she has this first debate under her belt what another VP debate would look like. I expect she would wow again.

(4) I think Palin now becomes the big asset to McCain she can be. The media will quickly now become bored with the "Is Palin competent to be VP" debate after her performance tonight. What she needs to do is quite frankly besides the occasional big rally and appearance to rally the base is go under the radar. She and her big ole huge family and her Union Husband need to hit the battle ground states doing 18 hours days visiting every small town and burg. IF she does that and turns on the Palin charm then McCain has a real chance