I think Matt Yglesias best explains why, over the three debates, pundits across the political spectrum gave McCain better grades than the snap polls:
To me, the crux of the matter is that McCain can’t get out of the habits that served him very well when he was a Senator building a glowing national reputation largely by talking directly to elite members of the political press. If you watched the previous two presidential debates, plus the VP debate, plus about half of the Democratic primary debates, plus the prime time speeches at the Democratic National Convention, and you’ve seen a dozen Obama surrogates yakking on cable a dozen times each just since Lehman Brothers went under then it gets kind of boring to watch Obama stay calm and repeat his talking points on the key issues.
But the debate is targeted at folks who haven’t watched all that stuff. And a lot of McCain’s best moments will have gone way over the heads of most people.
For example, he alluded at one point to a desire to allow more imports of sugar ethanol. Now if you’re familiar with the details of the ethanol debate, you’ll know that McCain’s stance on this is correct on the merits. And you’ll also know that Obama is a big support of corn ethanol both because they grow corn in downstate Illinois and because they made a big push for the Iowa Caucuses. McCain, by contrast, has a long and principled record on corn ethanol that’s hurt him in Iowa. This isn’t the biggest deal in the world, but it is a nice illustration of some of McCain’s key campaign themes. And yet he didn’t try to explain it at all. Similarly, he’s had a knack for besting Obama on national security issues nobody cares about, like the relationship of US-Colombia trade deals to the US-Venezuela proxy conflict playing out in the Colombian jungle. People figure that Obama seems like a smart guy, and if something important happens involving a guerilla group nobody’s heard of fighting a president nobody’s heard of in a country nobody cares about, that Obama’s up to the task of coming up with a good idea — meanwhile, McCain has no education policy.
POST-MORTEM: The big winner was Joe the Plumber -- the rest of us are screwed. And, if you played the drinking game below, you are also pretty hammered.
More substantively: McCain was better on economic issues than in the first two debates. On trade in particular, McCain wiped the floor with Obama. Obama was wrong on the Colombia FTA (the trendline of protection of labor leaders is improving, not worsening) and I was glad to hear McCain bring up Brazilian ethanol (that makes one of us). Obama does well what he always does well -- try to explain his positions as clearly as possible.
Less substantively: The split screen is going to kill John McCain -- and the way he handled the Ayers/ACORN/Lewis portion of the debate is going to kill him yet again. Contra the post-debate commentary, I thought Obama seemed more peeved at points during this debate... but he got better as the debate went along.
Feel free to comment here on tonight's Hofstra debate about the economy. In the interest of sanity, I will not be live-blogging it (check out Alex Massie for that), but will provide a post-mortem. In the meantime, I offer the following Protectionist Drinking Game to make the debate go more quickly:
TAKE A SIP WHEN:
Obama references jobs going overseas to China
McCain references $700 billion going to countries that don't like us very much
Pledges of energy independence are made by both candidates within a five-minute span
Either candidate talks about the "rigorous enforcement of trade rules"
McCain says something good about international trade.
DO A SHOT WHEN:
Obama articulates a race-to-the-bottom theory of labor or environmental standards
McCain articulates a race-to-the-bottom theory of corporate taxation
Either candidate promises to bring manufacturing jobs back to this country (BONUS: finish entire drink if McCain pledges to do this and says, "it's simple" at any point during his explanation).
Obama says something good about international trade that ends with the word "but..."
Sovereign wealth funds are mentioned.
FINISH YOUR DRINK WHEN:
Obama says something good about international trade that does not end with the word "but..."
Either candidate says the phrase "Financial Stability Forum"
The Doha round is mentioned
Either candidate actually names an economist during the course of an answer (Ben Bernanke doesn't count).
Enjoy... or suffer, depending on your expectations.
In the end, both candidates put forward mainstream internationalist positions on most issues related to national security, stressing the prudent use of military force, working in concert with allies and insisting that America could still be an active force for good in the world.What was odd was that this hopeful vision of America’s role in the world clashed badly with their rhetoric on the global economy. When talk turned to economics, the rest of the world was viewed as a scary, scary place.
11:00 PM: Off to bed. For those of you who missed the debate, Will Wilkinson's recap is shorter and funnier than the actual debate.
10:46 PM: Ah, I can switch to CNN... and just heard an uncommitted Ohio voter say that she thought there was more "straight talk" in this debate. This is odd, because I thought both McCain and Obama were better at direct answers than Palin or Biden.
10:44 PM: The Official Blog Wife is forcing me to watch the post-game on PBS. A professor there also says she thought that Palin's answers were way too folksy. Hmmm... two academics think she was too colloquial... McCain advisors somewhere are jumping with glee.
10:31 PM: That's it! My take: Palin did much better than expected, but the folksiness was layered on a bit thick for me. Biden did better than her on foreign policy, but he also launched into some stem-winders when shorter, crisper replies would have been better.
10:29 PM: Palin's closing statement: "I've always been proud to be an American. And so has John McCain." Subtle implication: Biden and Obama are the real Manchurian Candidates.
10:27 PM: Oh, wow, Biden just gave a shout-out to Mike Mansfield. That's old school! And it's actually a good anecdote about Jesse Helms.
10:18 PM: I'm going to be very curious how this debate plays with people who only catch bits and pieces of the debate. I think the Sarah Palin of this debate will play well in short sound bites; Joe Biden is barely tolerable. Over ninety minutes, Palin's repeated tics start to grate more than Joe Biden's -- which is really saying something.
10:13 PM: Did Sarah Palin just say that she wished the Constitution gave the Vice-Presidency more power?
10:11 PM: ENOUGH WITH THE MOTHER-F$%$ING SMALL TOWN, MAIN STREET, SCRANTON/WASILLA FOLK WISDOM BULLS%$T!!
God, that felt good.
10:10 PM: I'm beginning to suspect that at 3:00 AM every day this week, someone woke up Sarah Palin and yelled "greed and corruption on Wall Street" at her.
10:04 PM: Hey, Sarah Palin wants to attach political conditionality to Alaska's sovereign wealth fund! This live-blogging has actually been useful for my research!
10:03 PM:David Pinto is live-blogging the Cubs-Dodgers game. I so got the short end of the stick.
10:01 PM: Biden's contempt is starting to leak through.... his sigh is almost as good as Al Gore's. To be fair, I'm finding Palin to be a bit wearying after an hour of listening to her verbal tics.
9:59 PM: Before I vote for Barack Obama, he must promise that he will never allow Joe Biden to repeat anything on camera ever again.
9:51 PM: Was it just me, or did Biden have a mini-stroke when he said "Spain?"
9:47 PM: Biden gives an answer on Pakistan that's pretty good, until he ends with (paraphrasing), "there are 1,000 madrasahs on the border in Pakistan! We should be building schools instead." Hey, Joe? That's what a madrasah is.
I think he just pulled a Palin!
9:43 PM: Palin to Biden: "Your plan on Iraq is a white flag of surrender." Wow. That's pretty strong language. Since no one cares about Iraq anymore, it won't matter, though.
9:38 PM: Laura McKenna: "I really, really want to trim Palin's bangs."
9:31 PM: On the climate change question, a little of the Katie Couric-style Palin pops in for a visit. Oh, and just to repeat -- energy independence is a really nice thing to talk about, but until those dilithium crystals are discovered, it's never gonna happen.
9:29 PM: James Poulos is right: "it’s so far super-easy to tune [Biden] out.
9:27 PM: I know this is nitipicking, but neither of them has directly answered a question.
9:26 PM: Biden is driving me to drink. By the fourth question, Palin has finally nailed her Tina Fey impression cold.
9:23 PM: Blinking Light 1, Biden 0!!
9:21 PM:God bless Megan McArdle: "Sarah Palin winks at the camera. I didn't believe it the first time I saw it; thank god for TiVo. I think all three million viewers are supposed to come up to her hotel room with a bottle of champagne after the debate."
9:17 PM: Palin makes a great point about small businesses! Really! I'm not being sarcastic here (Biden has a fair rebuttal)!
9:15 PM: Palin's spoken message, "I might not answer the questions in the way you like, but I'm going to speak right to the American people!" Unspoken message: "Darn it, I've learned how to duck a direct question! Yay!!"
9:13 PM: I second Alex Massie -- "I too want extra credit for watching this."
9:12 PM: Everyone drink at the first mention of a Joey!!
9:10 PM: Hey, Suzie Ormon has possessed Sarah Palin's body!!
9:09 PM: Both of them gave decent non-answers to the first question.
9:01 PM: Watching this on CNN HD -- uncommitted Ohio voters are decidedly neutral towards Gwen Ifill.
9:00 PM: It begins... hey, wait, where's the Olympic torch ceremony?8:54 PM: Should Soledad O'Brien really be telling the dialers that negative attacks don't play well with dialers? Isn't that corrupting the sample?
8:50 PM: In a dramatic policy reversal, the hard-working staff here at danieldrezner.com announced that they will start watchig the debate with coffee ice cream, and then switch to alcohol. This was not an easy decision to make, but after seeing the effect of our prior policy on equity and credit markets, it was necessary to make adjustments.
7:24 PM: Politico's Mike Allen reports that Palin is going to go on the offensive against Biden. This would make the debate more entertaining.
Comment away on the vice presidential debate between Joe Biden and Sarah Palin. I'll be live-blogging this one, but bear in mind:
I'll probably update this post a little less frequently -- i.e., after every five-minute "segment" of the debate.
Here's a topic of discussion before tonight's debate -- the following ad released by McCain's campaign. It's targeted against Biden, and called "Embarrass":
The ad works in making Biden seem buffoonish. Here's the thing, though -- is it possible to defend this ad while simultaneously defending Sarah Palin? Wouldn't the people who like Palin's "folksiness" like some of the gaffes in this ad?
Seriously, I put this to the Palinphiles.
Back when the debate starts....
Here's Katie Couric with both VP candidates about their thoughts on the Supreme Court:
This is a hell of a choice. On the one hand there's an unstoppable gasbag who makes every question all about him. And on the other hand there's an idiot with no understanding of constitutional law beyond the 3X5 index card placed in front of her. Neither of them have met a sentence that they can't extend for another two minutes with their run-on syntax.
The debate tomorrow night might be the most painful two hours of television I have watched since Temptation Island.
UPDATE: Ross Douthat makes an excellent point:
there's a sense in which the apologists for her performance are getting something right: In the process of performing very, very badly on national television, Palin is holding up a mirror to the rest of the political world, and revealing how the mix of talking points, bluster, obfuscation and BS that nearly all national politicians traffic in as a matter of course sounds when it's filtered through someone who isn't practiced in it, and isn't ready for the spotlight. Her performances reflect badly on her readiness for the vice presidency, no question - but they reflect badly on our whole compromised, spin-happy political class as well.
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