In her RNC debut, Governer Sarah Palin’s stepped onto the scene with her small town, girl-next-door charm, dazzling us with her maverick-like stance in telling congress “Thanks but no thanks on that bridge to nowhere,” and eventually portraying herself as an environmentalist. This created a bubble of excitement which put McCain ahead in National polls, and it really shook up and reinvigorated an unmotivated Republican base. It appears she was even able to siphon off a few Hillary supporters.
Weeks of fact checking and a couple of interviews later, the Palin-bubble would soon burst. Her cute quips got old after awhile and she seemed less girl-next-door-like with the odd troopergate situation and her not-so-subtle dabbling at library book banning. Everyone who bought in to the bridge to nowhere refusal had egg on their face after videos showed that she was for it, before she was against it. On top of this, a cursory search shows she “killed” the program when it was already dead. Environmentalist? Go to a Sierra Club meeting and show your support for aerial wolf hunting, suing to have polar bears delisted as a threatened species, and grossly low-balling the effect that drilling in ANWR would have on the local wildlife. As the public got to know Palin, McCain’s delayed but inevitable slip in the polls would begin to take effect.
Palin’s role in tonight was to apparently defend the Bush-Cheney-like policies her ticket represents, at least in regard to Iraq and the economy; and apparently to use the word maverick as often as possible. Biden had his facts in hand, and was able to catch Palin’s misstatements time and time again. Palin looked frustrated, as though she was struggling to make words come out of her mouth. Biden’s responses were seamless.
Tonight, mainstream America finally got to know Joe Biden, who has been so far, an unknown on the national scene. His years of experience in foreign policy and his great standing with the middle class actually made him my favorite of the early Democratic nominees (unlike Hillary fans, I was ecstatic when Obama chose him). Leading up to tonight's debate, I was worried he would slip up and say something inappropriate (which he occasionally does), but this never happened. Tonight Joe Biden made his prolonged national debut, and concurrently wiped the proverbial floor with his opponent. I guess public opinion will tell us.
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