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Republican Sarah Palin greets Democrat Joseph Biden at Thursday's debate. |
"Debate" might be a generous term for the Thursday night exchange between vice presidential candidates Joe Biden and Sarah Palin, according to two area coaches in the art.
"It was very much a reiteration of the policies of the gentlemen at the top of the two tickets," said Peter Pober, director of the forensics program at George Mason University.
Tim O'Donnell, director of debate at the University of Mary Washington, said it was a little worrisome for him to listen to media analysts such as MSNBC's Chuck Todd suggest that Palin had done well to duck questions she wasn't prepared to answer.
"That's fair strategy," he said. "You can say that someone has successfully engaged in gamesmanship but that doesn't make one a good debater."
O'Donnell also thought moderator Gwen Ifill should have done more to demand direct answers to her questions--particularly after Palin declared, "I may not answer the questions that either the moderator or you want to hear, but I'm going to talk straight to the American people."
Pober said there's not that much Ifill and presidential debate moderator Jim Lehrer can do to combat politicians who have been coached to stick strictly to their campaign talking points.
"If these candidates are being coached in a very specific way to answer things, no matter what Ifill and Lehrer say, they're going to go their own way."
Pober and O'Donnell gave the edge Thursday night to Biden.
O'Donnell thought Biden struck the right tone in engaging Palin.
"He was respectful, but he was willing to identify clear areas of disagreement and do so in a civil tone free of ad hominem attacks," he said.
One of Palin's strengths, he thought, was in drawing separation between Biden and Barack Obama, particularly in going back to previous comments by Biden that Obama wasn't ready to be president.
Pober said the candidates took two different approaches to speaking directly to middle-class America.
He was struck by what he termed the "down-home" expressions like "Joe Sixpack" and "doggone it" that Palin threw into her speech. He did point out, though, that she seemed to turn her folksy mode of speech on and off throughout the debate.
"She articulates sometimes," he said. "But when she wants to be perceived as in line with middle-class America then she begins to drop some of her letters and speak in phrases like 'darn right.'"
Biden's approach to connecting with voters was to talk about his father, about the towns he grew up in and the hardships he's experienced in his own life.
"I don't think that you can say that one speaks better than the other with regard to being a part of the middle class," Pober said.
O'Donnell said he thought Palin could have countered Biden's claim about what the commanding general in Afghanistan had said about military strategy there if she hadn't used the general's name--and gotten it wrong.
Palin referred to a Gen. "McClellan," when the name is McKiernan.
"If you're going to point out a difference between yourself and your opponent, you kinda gotta get it right," O'Donnell said.
Of course, Biden isn't free of naming gaffes.
At an appearance in Manassas last month, he incorrectly identified Palin as a lieutenant governor and mispronounced Ifill's name.
Pober said the one and only vice presidential debate probably won't sway any voters already committed to one side or the other.
"This was much more the introduction of two vice presidential nominees," he said.
Emily Battle: 540/374-5413
Email: ebattle@freelancestar.com
