Posted in Politics, Videos on October 23rd, 2008 by Hyphen
If you weren’t able to make it to Tacoma last Sunday to hear Joe speak, here are a few short highlights. It may sound trite, but he’s right. Every vote really does count, especially here in Washington where Governor Gregoire needs your support.
If you have your absentee ballot, vote now. If you have some free time in the next 10 days, volunteer to help out right here. And that’s not just empty rhetoric, I’ve been volunteering since the start of summer. Get out there and help bring us across the finish line.
In case you had any trouble following along with her rambling run-on sentences last night, here’s her basic formula. Don’t make me post the transcripts.
Wow. At this point, every moronic, bumbling, “college kid who didn’t do the reading” answer Palin gives is actually getting scarier and scarier. This person just isn’t informed enough about issues to be a 72 year old, 4 time cancer survivor (who won’t release his full medical records) heartbeat away from being the president. I mean, are you serious? Really? Her as the leader of the free world? This is a joke…right?
The debate tomorrow will be interesting, but the talking points and headlines from the right wing have already been written. Her expectations are so low that as long as she doesn’t pass out on stage, people will claim she did a great job. Also, regardless of how Biden performs, he’ll be called a sexist or condescending. We already know it’s coming, so watch for that spin right after the debate. So predictable.
In truth, if they stick to the issues, it will be clear than Palin (and McCain) is nothing more than empty rhetoric, without any real policies or plans to improve the country. She’ll throw around buzzwords like “reform” and “maverick” and pepper her answers with references to America’s greatness and how to keep us safe from terrorism. Ironically, one of her main attack points will be that Biden has been in Washington too long and she’s the ‘new blood.’ Sadly, he running mate is John McCain. Every attack with that line of thinking could easily be applied to her own presidential candidate, which I hope the pundits will point out after the debate. After all, we are talking about the American public here. We need things to be laid out explicitly for them to understand what they are watching, preferably with a shiny diagram or two.
The bottom line is that this is a ‘change’ election. When the country goes through a hard time, the party in power gets voted out and the other one gets its shot. McCain was running as the ‘experience’ candidate while Barack was the ‘change’ candidate. Once they realized that they would lose this battle all day, every day, McCain’s camp went with Palin and tried to morph into a ‘change’ campaign. They aren’t, but it’s a cute effort, and you’ll see this moronic hypocrisy on display tomorrow night. Don’t you just love our political process?
Alright, after a few less serious (but fairly accurate) clips from Chris Rock, here’s Joe Biden’s post debate comments on MSNBC with Keith Olbermann. I love how they started with McCain’s most egregious error of the debate, where he tried to paint Obama as pridefully ignorant like Bush. Unbelievable.
McCain’s actually lucky that he has to debate Barack instead of Biden. Biden counteracts McCain’s only perceived “strength,” and wouldn’t hold back and be civil like Obama. For instance, Barack probably felt like if he pointed out that independent veterans groups have given McCain awful scores for his veterans voting, he’d get lambasted because he’s not a war hero like McCain. Biden’s got the rep to bring that up though. He’d tear John apart.
My fear, that I’ve seen others echo, is that Biden’s almost in a lose/lose situation with Palin in their debate. If he smashes her, which is increasingly possible the more we hear from her, some people will complain that he’s beating up on her unfairly. You already know that the Republican surrogates are getting the “Biden was sexist” arguments written out now before anything’s even said. That’s going to be the first talking point of that evening, count on it.
If he takes it easy, people will be impressed that she didn’t get crushed and they’ll over exaggerate her performance. Also, if Biden makes one of his trademark gaffes and does anything remotely construed as disrespectful, it’s all you’ll hear in the media for weeks. He’s got to be on his game and destroy her on nothing but the issues, without running up the score or rubbing it in. You got this, but tread lightly Joe.
Except, of course, when you’re talking about McCain. In which case, ether accordingly.
