Biden vs. Palin

Joe Biden's spokesman raises expectations (with tounge firmly in cheek) for Sarah Palin:

“He's going in here to debate a leviathan of forensics, who has debated five times and she's undefeated.”
— Biden spokesman David Wade

Debate: View from the Far Right

OK, I still do not see the debate as a "decisive Obama win". Heck, I don't even see it as a narrow Obama win---at best my view is the night was a draw.

Josh Trevino--founder of the conservative website RedState--disagrees. Big time.
Some excerpts (h/t dKos):

Most shocking is the Democracy Corps survey which, though a Democratic outfit, stacked its focus group 2-1 with ‘04 George W. Bush voters — and yielded a plurality for an Obama win.

The bottom line is that John McCain did not accomplish what he needed to: discredit Barack Obama as a responsible steward of America’s fortunes abroad. A major theme of his campaign is Obama’s callowness and consequent unfitness to lead in wartime. The failure to expose this posited shallow grasp of the wider world — a remarkable proposition about a half-Kenyan raised in Indonesia anyway — is a serious erosion of credibility for McCain. To find a foundational proposition of one’s candidacy rendered ineffectual is a tremendous blow

Ouch. But wait, there's more:

In one swoop, the superiority of John McCain on foreign affairs was laid waste. An effective debater would have responded with a series of his foe’s own grievous errors in the same sphere — and despite his thin public record, Barack Obama has several. Instead, McCain lamely replied, "I’m afraid Senator Obama doesn’t understand the difference between a tactic and a strategy," and segued into a non sequitur about General Petraeus. To paraphrase Tallyrand, this was worse than a crime — it was a mistake. Assaulted on the very pillar of his candiacy, John McCain yielded.

Pause here and consider the source: Hardly a leftist-leaning lickspittle of the Main Stream Media. The freakin' founder of RedState..

It gets worse:

The larger story here is not the debate. Rather, it is the story of which the debate is merely the culminating chapter: the three-week-long implosion of the McCain campaign itself. At the end of the first week of September, that campaign boasted its first lead in the national polls, a surprisingly successful convention, and an energizing vice-presidential nominee. At the end of the last week of September, the lead is gone, the convention is forgotten, and Sarah Palin is more disaster than delight

I guess he just joined the nattering nabobs of negativism.

Palin: Reversal of fortune

Old leftosphere reaction: McCain has pulled off a game-changer! Why-Ohwhy didn't Obama pick Hillary?

New leftosphere reaction: Oh, won't you staaaaay...just-a-little-bit-long-er?

Tide turning against Palin

Summarized in an article on Fox News, which then scrubbed it from the website.

"Fair and balanced".

However, you can't fool The Google--a copy was cached on a server---in China.

Very Orwellian mind-set over at Fox.

UPDATED: The righty chatteratti are piling on.

Strategy vs. Tactics

...good analysis here.

Debate

...well, the polls show an Obama win.

I disagree.

I thought we had a chance to deliver a knockout blow to a tottering McCrankypants and failed to do so. Disappointed.

McCain had a specific theme he went out to stress and did a good job sticking with it: "Obama doesn't understand, I'm experienced, I've been there, I know the leaders." He said it over and over--which was the idea.

In terms of tone, edge to Obama: McCain (as always) sounded like a jerk--Obama very calm and specific. Again, another missed chance for Obama: McCain clearly has a temper (famously so, in fact) and I think he could easily be pushed to snap.

To be fair to Obama his performances have improved by an order of magnitude--you should have seen his early debates in the primaries. But he tends to be somewhat passionless...too much the scholar.

Watched at the local Democratic HQ: We chose to play the non-alcoholic version of the debate drinking game--take a drink every time McCain said "Reagan", "my friends", "surge", or "Petraeus". Total score: 4 Reagans, 5 my friends, 3 surges, and 4 Petraeuses.

UPDATE: I left out at least two "mavericks". My God, I can't believe they actually say that: Worth a double shot.

Oh, bottom line: I don't think anybody's mind was changed last night.

Oh what a tangled web...

Reality continues to outpace satire.

The McCain campaign, weary of being called out by the press on being...factually challenged...held a conference call with selected media types to make their case and suggest that there some things about the Obama/Biden ticket which were worthy of more scrutiny.

They provided a list to reporters which turned out to be....youuuuu guessed it! Lies! Oh, sorry..."errors". Incredibly, they chose to advance an...embellished...version of the truth when they probably didn't need to. They lie instinctively.

But wait, there's more: Asked about the "errors" Team McCain was unable to substantiate any of their claims.

But wait, there's more: Unable to make their case, they concluded that the media were "in the tank" for Obama.

But wait, there's more: The Obama campaign responds:

Number of probing stories the NY Times has written over the course of the campaign about Barack Obama, his life, his religion, his childhood, his politics, his time in the state senate, his time in the U.S. Senate, his family, his religion, his friends, his fundraising and all other manner of associations: more than 40

Number of stories the NY Times has written over the course of the campaign about the last major financial regulatory crisis, resulting in a huge bailout, and which John McCain was centrally involved in with his political godfather Charles Keating: 0