Courtesy of AmericaBlog, here is a quick rundown of reaction to last night's debate, in which Biden spoke from knowledge and experience and Sarah Palin seemed to be operating from talking points:
Huffington Post Ex-Bush Officials: Biden Won The Debate:
Torie Clarke (Bush administration and McCain staffer, on ABC): " I think Joe Biden had his best night tonight. He came with one mission, and that was to go after John McCain, and he did it, backed up by facts. I think he did a better job tonight of tying McCain to the Bush administration than Obama did last week.
Bush administration staffer Matthew Dowd on ABC, 10:52 PM: “I think fundamentally the American public came away with this tonight, just like they came away with the debate last night, saying, you know, I'm leaning in Obama and Biden's corner, and this didn't change my mind.”
CNN David Gergen: People are underestimating how good Biden was. Biden “was really good”
CNN Alex Castellanos 10:38 PM : "Republicans aren't going to win debates on Iraq, I don't care who you put on that stage tonight, we're not going to win debates on Iraq and we didn't tonight. But overall, we've had a rough week as Republicans. You know, this has not been our best week."
CBS Bob Schieffer 10:35 PM: “I must say, I thought Senator Biden had a very good night. He seemed comfortable with the facts, it was clear he has dealt with these issues over the years, I thought he put his experience on display in a very good way.”
MSNBC Chris Matthews 10:35 PM: "Not only did she say I'm not going to do any more interviews, it seemed, but she was saying, I'm not going to listen to uh Gwen Ifill tonight. She said I'm not going to uh give the answers the moderator wants to ask for. What an extraordinary statement. I'm not going to play by the rules and when I get elected I want more power in the office than it's had before. Hmm.. Not too much humility here."
CBS Bob Schieffer 10:35 PM: “I must say, I found it a little disconcerting, time and again, Governor Palin would just choose not to answer the question and launch into some dissertation, sometimes talking points, and not really address what Gwen Ifill had asked her.”
PBS David Brooks 10:39 PM: "When he talked about his family and the death of his wife, that is a moment people remember, what they remember about the debates is the moment when you think you see the person and that was a moment where I thought you saw Joe Biden."
MSNBC Andrea Mitchell 10:38 PM: "She didn't answer the questions. And, in fact, she would say, I want to talk about taxes, which hadn't even come up."
FOX News Frank Luntz 10:44 PM: When the Luntz Polling group asked independent voters their reactions, one voter said: “she had a presentation about her, but that also annoyed me, too. She catered to kind of an adorability and lacked substance.”
Washington Post (Eugene Robinson): Exactly an hour into the debate, Joe Biden began an answer by saying, "Facts matter, Gwen." To him, maybe. To Sarah Palin, maybe not. The pattern, so far, has been one of Biden presenting facts and Palin countering with… saying stuff. Sometimes she throws in a fact, but mostly she seems to be offering a string of approximate policy positions, encomiums to the American spirit, disputed interpretations of Barack Obama's record and anecdotes from Alaska.
Philadelphia Daily News (Will Bunch): Biden points out that Ahmadinjad isn't the supreme ruler of Iran -- how come people don't bring that up. Hammering McCain on the Spain issue -- the McCain camp really screwed up on the way it handled that one.
Salon (Joan Walsh) How Sarah Palin blew it: Joe Biden and Sarah Palin were talking to two different Americas Thursday night. Actually, that's unfair to Joe Biden; he was trying to talk to everyone. I can say for certain, though, that Sarah Palin was talking to – and winking at – her own private Idaho, and for long stretches of the debate, it was an unnerving experience.
Washington Post: (E.J. Dionne Jr.) McCain's Dicey Gamble: Gambling with his presidential candidacy is McCain's right. Gambling with the country McCain says he puts first is another thing entirely. And last night's vice presidential debate took place at precisely the moment when a majority of American voters decided that having Palin in line for the presidency is more than a little bit scary.
CNN (Bob Schneider): Palin’s answers do not lack confidence, they lack coherence.
Washington Post (Chris Cillizza): She pivots to executive appearance but her answer on the role of the vice presidency was REALLY bad.
TIME: Palin didn’t make any big mistakes, but she also didn’t reassure that she could handle the presidency.
Washington Post (Chris Cillizza): Palin: Looking down at her notes a lot. Really struggling.
TIME: This closing statement sounds like she's giving a speech to the College Republicans. It's really amateur hour.
Politico (Ben Smith): As this debate has gone on, Palin's gotten more abstract, Biden more concrete.
ABC News (Rick Klein): Palin: "So Joe, there you go again." Is anyone else over that line? Couldn't it have been retired with Reagan? Shout-out to third graders at her brother's elementary school? What world were we just in there for a few minutes?
CNN (Bob Schneider): Palin needs to define the terms she uses. Reform, corruption, maverick…these are words that Palin often uses, but she needs to define them.
FOX News (Aaron Bruns): Palin calls the supreme NATO commander in Afghanistan, Gen David McKiernan, “McClellan.” Does it twice.
Politico (Jonathan Martin): Biden explains how McCain is not a maverick on voting for Bush's budgets, health care and education. No dispute from Palin.
TNR: Palin's final quote was from Ronald Reagan, warning that without vigilance, "you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children, and our children's children, what it once was like in America when men were free." In fact, Reagan was not warning about a general lack of vigilance about freedom, he was warning what would happen if Medicare was enacted.
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