What? No VP debate thread?
 

Wow, Bond must have had a lot homework tonight. ;)

Anyways, I was really surprised how articulate both Palin and Biden were about not supporting gay marriage. What reason would anyone have for not supporting gay marriage? Aside from risking losing the rednecks' vote. And don't say religious beliefs. Anyone who places faith in a God that would discriminate one form of love and allow another is actually entrusting their faith in Satan.

Aside from that, both Biden and Palin are well prepared and doing an excellent job.

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I was excited to watch this debate. But about ten minutes in, I realized how pointless this debate is. It feels so obvious that Palin went to debate camp for a few days prior and is repeating whatever she was told, while Biden actually knows his bullshit inside out.

Yawn. At least they're really nice to each other. And I agree that they both had good, political answers on gay marriage.

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i was disappointed. Other than that bridge to no-where comment by Biden about 30 minutes in, the debate was boring.

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Agreed. In all her interviews prior to this she's been flustered and occasionally unable to answer a question.

Her trainers have been pounding those answers into her.

I still find myself sexually attracted to her though. Very cute.

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Yeah, I had an Accounting midterm during the debate. :(

How was it? Hopefully CSPAN uploads it to YouTube.

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In my opinion Palin did better than expected, however it seemed obvious she had practiced for it and it didn't seem like a natural version of her. Its like she wasn't replying directly to Biden, she just took one key word or topic he'd mention and talked about it.

I think it was funny how she dissed the moderator for nobody laughing at her question.. especially when the crowd is supposed to be quiet, though they did make noise after she burned her. lol

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Just some other news today. Yup, Mccain's never a flip flopper.

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What a MILF!

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So, uh, where was Matt Gonzalez? Or Rosa Clemente?

:lolz:

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I didn't watch that video, just commenting on your comment, but being a "flip flopper" is not a bad thing. Intelligent people change their minds when given new information.

Anywho, I think Biden won the debate. He didn't let up and really poured on the attacks. I don't think it was a failure for Palin, though, I think she really appealed to a lot of typical Americans. Not a game changing debate, though.

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I actually had a LONG post agreeing with you on this... but then I realized the clips were from Keith Olberman so I decided to fact chack it, and my hunch was correct, and McCain was taken SEVERELY out of context.

McCain's stance is that this bill was too important and timely to be held up because of arguments over pork, but OVERALL pork spending needs to be curtailed and vetoes used. He never asked Bush to veto THIS bill, in particular. I will agree that I believe McCain's answer was inartful, but it was NOT what Olberman attempted to portray it as. If you listen to the context, when McCain said "This bill puts us on the brink of disaster", is was an obvious misstatement. He meant to say that the reason he voted for this bill was because we are on the brink of disaster.

Here is an unedited version of the appeareance on Morning Joe, if anyone would like an unbiased view of the interview, where I think McCain actually came off quite well, but you might disagree and thats fine. But PLEASE don't take Keith Olberman's word for it...



By the way, someone needs to tell McCain to stop smiling. He's not a smiler.

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I agree, I think being able to admit you're wrong about something is a good quality. But you should watch the video however.. Basically he votes yes for the bail out, and less than 24 hours later he commented that bush should veto it. If he truely had a change of heart that fast, that means he made an ill informed decision to begin with.

Its alomst like the republicans wanted the bill to pass, but also wanted to pin it on the democrats at the same time.

-EDIT-

Strangler's post wasn't there when I typed this one. Watch the wholeinterview that he has, but just keep in mind Mccain voted yes for the bill. I think he's admitting he followed his party even though he disagreed with it? Some Mavrick.

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I thought the debate came off well. And personally speaking one of the first real debate we had in the last two elections as both engaged each other, they spoke about their messages while also questioning the other.

I don't know about the facts, but they both seemed well-verse. Though I felt Biden came off a bit more confident in himself and his party. Palin did not blow it like most people expected, and really why should she. These are pretty controlled debates.

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I know he voted yes, and he explains (or mis-explains, quite honestly) why he voted yes, but is against pork overall. Watch the whole thing in context, and his views are clear. His stance on this issue is nuanced based on the dire need for this particular bill to pass, but having always been against pork and consistently so. If he were to rail against all the pork on the bill, it would be weeks before anything passed, and the fear is our economy could collapse by then. he has also fought for financial reform for years, going back to 2005-06 when he tried to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but democrats like Barney Frank shot the bill down. Honestly, how the McCain camp hasn't made a national ad about that yet blows my mind.

Also, keep in mind that John McCain has NEVER asked for or benefitted from pork in any bill in almost 30 years, and has called for a line-item veto to ELIMINATE pork for years. If anything states that a politician is honest and has integrity, its refusal to accept pork, because pork is literally a bribing/purchasing of votes.

A single vote in a very unique situation does not negate a lifetime of reform when it comes to cutting fat from legislation.

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I agree strangler, and I agree that it may be a special circumstance. But I also think its very bad timing. I wouldn't have been mad at him for voting no for political reasons in this case. In the middle of an election where you're preaching one thing, you can't sit there and vote another way. If he'd have voted no and it passed, he'd have a good angle to pin Obama/Washington with.

But I think that's the bigest problem with the bail out in general, most guys wanted to vote no for political reasons, but wanted it to pass at the same time.
Mostly because they know this bail out won't fix the current problem, it'll just catch an economy that's falling, and not nessicarily lift it. I can understand why one would have mixed feelings on it.



Anyway, on the subject of the debate itself, I think Palin did have a good strategy of changing the subject and making her own off topic points. Its better then her trying to answer things directly and fumbling like in interviews. And her off topic ramling actually made sence, they cleaned her up nice for the debate.

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I enjoyed the debate a lot. I have not seen Joe Biden speak much in the past, and it was a very pleasant surprise.

Palin clearly showed a marked improvement, but everything she said felt memorized. She used the same phrases over and over, which is a common speech technique to imprint something, but in this case felt like more of a way of dissembling with rhetoric.

Biden on the other hand seemed very genuinely passionate about his answers. Not only did he explain how he felt about issues, he explained why he felt that way. It was very refreshing, and I felt like he was somebody I could vote for to be President. Which isn't something I've felt about past VP's.

All in all, I think a lot of ground was covered.

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Rather than actually answering most of the questions, she did have a couple of things she continuously fell back on, even if they had nothing to do with what the question was asking. When asked what her weakness was, she rambled about something totally incoherent. When asked if she would pull back on anything because of the economic crisis, she also went off on a tangent, and only said "No" when the moderator asked her again.

Also thought that the civil unions thing was funny. I disagree with both of them, I don't think civil unions are good enough and I think marriage should be available for homosexuals. However, Biden at least did say he supported civil unions, and that is a step in the right direction, and is a nice thing to stick with, since it loses them more votes than it gains. I loved Palin's reaction when the moderator pressed the issue about if she would support a civil union.

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Well then, by your own explanation, McCain voted based on what he thought was right in this instance, and not for the sake of his campaign because the vote creates the appearance on contradiction on a superficial level.

I'll vote for that person every time.

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I think its hippocritical though. I think he could have pushed for his own ideals more, maybe a very different version of the bailout could have passsed with more time. If he thought it was right, he shouldn't have acted like it wasn't after the fact. If he thought it was wrong, he shouldn't have voted yes for it. No matter how you write it up, there's a contradiction there.

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Because he caved to his party? We have individuals in office for a reason, to vote for what they believe is the best course.

What you're arguing makes absolutely no sense.

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When did I talk about caving into a party, and how do you see any evidence of that? He voted for what he thought was right in this instance, and against his party. Look at the numbers. More Republicans voted AGAINST both versions of the bill than Democrats, and McCain voted FOR the bill.

How is going against a party's majority vote translate to caving in to it? In fact, you could credit McCain for leading his party in the direction of voting for the second version of the bill.

I'm not the one making no sense...

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Sorry that I misspoke regarding who he caved to.

The principle arguement still stands. He's opposed to the bill, yet he voted for it. How does that make any sense? And how is it commendable or deserving of respect? He's an elected official. He was elected to vote for what he believed, and he didn't.

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I saw that flowchart earlier. And it is relatively accurate to how I felt the debate went.

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Please read my posts and watch the interview I posted in its entirety. I've already explained why this is a commendable act on his part. he acted out of what he thought was right, and didn;t care that those like you would try and twist his value's for partisan reasons. This conversation is getting very frustrating because of everyone's refusal to react to a situation with any kind of thoughtfulness, and just chalk it up to "Gotcha!".

1) McCain has always opposed pork in spending and has NEVEr accepted or asked for pork in exchange for his vote.

2) Economy about to collapse, congress needed to act in most economist's opinions, OTHER representatives push all kinds of pork in the bill but it still needs to pass out of fear that weeks of quibbling over pork will lead to the end of American as we know it. McCain chooses to lesser of two evils.

3) McCain is instrumental in pulling Republicans to vote for the bill.

4) McCain helps to pass the bill, and points out pork in the interview, and explains his nuanced stance on this issue, and why voted for the bill in this case but also how the pork almost ruined it.

What is there not to understand? Do you not recognize this bill as an extraordinary case that was very time sensitive? If you WANT to find all kinds of serious contradictions and "flip-flops" in this series of events, I'm sure you can, but that would make you no better than Keith Olberman who spends his career twisting words to fit his world view (like Rush on the right). The way you are behaving you would think McCain is the one who asked for pork or is receiving it. He isn't, and never has. It also ignores the fact that he has called for a line item veto for years, and that would have made this entire discussion moot and there wouldn't have been a series of events to overreact to if McCain's values had been put in place.

If you want to have a thoughtful opinion on this, you can do that, but you haven't. Everyone on the left wants to blow this out of purportion, and paint McCain as being something that he obviously isn't, and its shameful. Its up to you to decide how tot hink about this election, but to bring this up as some egregious case of McCain acting against his values is silly and extraordinarily partisan.

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The real question is why is Washington University allowed to host so many debates? The campus is nice, but it's not that nice.

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I notice you switched gears and kinda ignored the last thing I said, though the last post you made was the closest thing to a responce I could see. The truth is, it still doesn't make sense how its commendable. I've noticed you put a lot of words into Mccains mouth when it comes to the issue, but the truth is Mccain failed to give an good explanation to why he votes yes even though he's against the pork.

He had a good platform here to criticize the government about it. He could have pointed out who added the pork, and made the famous in an attempt to start cleaning up washington one bill at a time, starting with this one. You make a change by not giving into fear, and pointing out this kinda crap is what got us where we are in the first place.

I would have gladly waited another week for another bill if it helped clean up the government starting NOW.

But no... he voted for it, and wasn't even trying to defend his reason for voting for it, just simply stating that its the kind of crap he'd veto if he were the president. He didn't say aything about the special circumstances, or say anything to the effect that "This time I had to let it slide for the safety of the country, but next time when I'm not scared of the results of NOT passing a bill, I'll vote no or veto it."

But I think we're both very aware how he came across on that interview was not very good. You can get on Olberman for making things sound different then they were, but there is no exert of the speech to speak of that he could have played in which Mccain really defended his choice. Mccain made >himself< sound bad by not explaining his actions and why he is against what he just voted for 24 hours ago.

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I don't think Mcain should have voted for the bill.
*edit: And not just because it had tons of pork in it. I'm not sure how more insane goverment spending or beggaring my future children helps.

I also think the debate was dull. I was expecting either a hilarious gaffe from Biden or a more "Barracuda" performance from Palin. Both were just very solid. I did like how Palin asked if she could call Sen. Biden, Joe.

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You should actually be more worried about yourself than your children, over time this bail out would pay off, it's just a huge chunk to spend all at once, at this point in time. I think McCain has handled the bail out fairly well. Anyone is 100% for it or 100% against it obviously doesn't know enough about it.

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Game, there is no point to debating this any further. I look back on 30 years of fighting pork and trying to get a line item veto, and you look at one mis-statement. There is no amount of explanation I or McCain could give that could satisfy your unreasonable demands on McCain when it came to this bill, and your simply acting hawkish for Obama, IMO.

Once again, 30 years of fighting against something, and one vote in extraordinary circumstances negates it all for you. There is no point in arguing further.

By the way, Obama voted for the bill, but since he's never fought against pork it makes it somehow better or not worthy of mention? Thats like Obama supporters attacking Palin's experience and not recognizing Obama has about two seconds more, and less executive experience. And no, I don;t count campaigning as experience, thats rhetoric and tests your ability to be a politician, not a statesman.

The more I hear arguments against McCain and for Obama, the less I understand the logical leaps of faith taken on behalf of Barack.

We've seen two crisis during this election, and in both of them one candidate came out and led, for bettre or worse, and that was McCain during both Georgia and the economic crisis, while Obama was fine to sit in the background and let McCain take all the risks during an election while Obama filled empty space with the beautiful language of empty equivocation. One candidate has shown that they want to lead this nation, and the other has shown that they want to be President. I'll vote for the leader.

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There's a little thing out there called setting expectations. If one fights against something for so long, then suddenly has a change of heart for one bill a month before they become president, its a bad thing, period. I'd just like Mccain to explain it in his own words why he did it. I have a fairly good idea why he did, but I just want him to say it.

As for dragging Obama in, if Obama was openly fighting against something and suddenly changed his mind (Or even acted against what he believed) mid September/October I'd be worried about him too. So I think tossing him in there is completly irrelevant. They both voted the same way, so there's no way to put them on opposite sides of the fence here, its just one happend to vote the way they expected and the other didn't.