The vice presidential debate (2nd review)

In my September article (“Sarah Palin as the new Nixon,”), I warned against perceiving Sarah Palin as incompetent. Last week’s vice presidential debate reinforced this point.

Palin’s debate strategy and her execution of it were quite sophisticated and carefully orchestrated. When she greeted Joe Biden by asking, “Can I call you Joe?” most observers perceived an attempt to exude friendliness while simultaneously bringing the Senator down to her level. Yes, but it was much more: That greeting was a setup for a punch line that she delivered more than an hour later.

Palin prepared for her zinger by accusing Biden of dwelling on the past whenever he criticized McCain’s voting record or the Bush administration. The next time Biden criticized Bush, Palin let loose: “Say it ain’t so, Joe. There you go again.”

Thus Palin’s request for permission to call Biden “Joe” gave her an excuse to use this oft-quoted reference to Shoeless Joe Jackson and the 1919 Black Sox scandal. Then Palin quoted Reagan’s famous put-down of Jimmy Carter from their 1980 debate. This was unoriginal but effective: Palin evoked nostalgia even as she claimed her campaign was about the future.

Here’s something no one else seems to have noticed about Palin’s “Can I call you Joe” greeting: The candidates were not yet at their lecterns, with their respective microphones, when Palin asked Biden that question; yet her voice was broadcast loud and clear. She must have been using a body mike, and she made sure to have it turned on. In contrast, when Biden and Palin exchanged words at the same spot at the end of the debate, the mikes were not on and we heard none of their words.

And how about Palin’s clever neutering of moderator Gwen Ifill? Palin’s surrogates attacked Ifill beforehand and asked that she recuse herself because she “did not disclose” that she was writing a book about Obama. Apparently they didn’t read Ifill’s website, which clearly said in the first paragraph that she was working on such a book. The tactic was to put Ifill on the defensive, and it worked. Ifill refrained from pointing out that Palin was not answering her questions.

Palin appears to be more clever and manipulative than her adversaries believed. As she told a Fox Network interviewer the next day: “I was a journalist and I know how you guys do things.”


To read another reaction to the debate by SaraKay Smullens, click here.