Friday, October 03, 2008
Palin v. Biden
Joe Biden is a veteran of 30-odd years in the United States Senate, having been first elected in 1972. He is Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and has been the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee for 16 years, including being Chairman from 1987-95. He has run for President twice, in 1988 and 2008. He participated in 14 debates during his 2008 run before dropping out of the race in January 2008.
Sarah Palin is Governor of Alaska, having been elected in November 2006. She has been involved in elective politics since 1991, having served on the Wasilla, AK city council from 1992 to 1996 and as mayor of Wasilla from 1996 to 2002. She ran unsuccessfully for Lt. Governor in 2002, was appointed to chair the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission in 2003 and served in that capacity for approximately a year, at which time she resigned claiming ethics violations by other Republican members of the Commission. After resigning she filed formal complaints against two members, who eventually resigned and one of whom paid a $12,000 fine.
During his time in the Senate, Joe Biden has been steeped in international issues and has been involved in numerous campaigns relating to the appointment of federal judges, not to mention making hundreds if not thousands of speeches and engaging in debate on the Senate floor and in committee hearings. Sarah Palin has been involved in national politics for approximately five weeks, since being tapped by John McCain to be his running mate. During that five week period she has had to get up to speed on national issues involving international relations, defense, the economy, immigration and a host of others, while participating fully in the McCain campaign, with all the travel and public appearances that entails. Most of these issues are irrelevant or at least immaterial to her current position as Governor and she has not been required to have any knowledge with respect to most of them until five weeks ago. (Most of the facts on Palin's background came from here.)
Joe Biden should have mopped the floor with Sarah Palin in last night's debate. He didn't.
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Sarah Palin is Governor of Alaska, having been elected in November 2006. She has been involved in elective politics since 1991, having served on the Wasilla, AK city council from 1992 to 1996 and as mayor of Wasilla from 1996 to 2002. She ran unsuccessfully for Lt. Governor in 2002, was appointed to chair the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission in 2003 and served in that capacity for approximately a year, at which time she resigned claiming ethics violations by other Republican members of the Commission. After resigning she filed formal complaints against two members, who eventually resigned and one of whom paid a $12,000 fine.
During his time in the Senate, Joe Biden has been steeped in international issues and has been involved in numerous campaigns relating to the appointment of federal judges, not to mention making hundreds if not thousands of speeches and engaging in debate on the Senate floor and in committee hearings. Sarah Palin has been involved in national politics for approximately five weeks, since being tapped by John McCain to be his running mate. During that five week period she has had to get up to speed on national issues involving international relations, defense, the economy, immigration and a host of others, while participating fully in the McCain campaign, with all the travel and public appearances that entails. Most of these issues are irrelevant or at least immaterial to her current position as Governor and she has not been required to have any knowledge with respect to most of them until five weeks ago. (Most of the facts on Palin's background came from here.)
Joe Biden should have mopped the floor with Sarah Palin in last night's debate. He didn't.
Labels: Debates, Democrats, Election, Joe Biden, politics, Sarah Palin
Sunday, September 28, 2008
More about Debade 2008, Ch.1
Another thing that I noticed about the debate was that Sen. McCain always referred to Sen. Obama as "Sen. Obama," but that for most of the debate Obama kept referring to McCain as "John." Then he switched, and began calling McCain, "Sen. McCain." It was abrupt enough to be noticeable.
As a matter of pure speculation (I have no proof of anything, of course)I wouldn't be surprised if the Obama campaign were running one of those focus groups where the participants have a knob that they turn up or down depending on whether they like what they hear, and were signaling Obama somehow when something he was saying was positively or negatively received. All it would take would be two cell phones set on "vibrate," one in a left pocket and the other in a right pocket, and all the campaign operative would have to do would be to dial one or the other to signal the candidate that something was or was not working. If the candidate prepared for the debate using such a scheme, it would not be distracting and he would be able to keep talking without missing a beat, just the way the news anchors do when someone's talking to them in their little earbud that they all wear.
I have no idea what the rules of the debate were, but I'm willing to bet that the candidates had to be unassisted during the debate, to be certain that their statements were really off-the-cuff, or at least rehearsed/memorized, as opposed to prompted by external "helpers."
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As a matter of pure speculation (I have no proof of anything, of course)I wouldn't be surprised if the Obama campaign were running one of those focus groups where the participants have a knob that they turn up or down depending on whether they like what they hear, and were signaling Obama somehow when something he was saying was positively or negatively received. All it would take would be two cell phones set on "vibrate," one in a left pocket and the other in a right pocket, and all the campaign operative would have to do would be to dial one or the other to signal the candidate that something was or was not working. If the candidate prepared for the debate using such a scheme, it would not be distracting and he would be able to keep talking without missing a beat, just the way the news anchors do when someone's talking to them in their little earbud that they all wear.
I have no idea what the rules of the debate were, but I'm willing to bet that the candidates had to be unassisted during the debate, to be certain that their statements were really off-the-cuff, or at least rehearsed/memorized, as opposed to prompted by external "helpers."
Labels: Debates, Election, McCain, Obama, politics
