My computer cut out last night, so I wasn't able to post any final thoughts on the debate, but two moments for each of the candidates stood out to me as significant.
Washington speak: Honestly I think this was Palin's best moment, although it was clear that the dig was somewhat shallow. Biden's effort to defend his vote for the 2003 AUMF is simply indefensible as "not a vote to use force." This explanation didn't pass muster when Hillary Clinton made it, and it doesn't work for Joe Biden. It was a perfect example of Washington speak, of trying to have it both ways, and it was the one moment in the debate for Palin where her persona matched her argument.
A question of succession: When Gwen Ifill asked the two candidates what they would do in the event that their running mate was killed or otherwise incapacitated, Palin's answer was absolutely frightening. The transcript of the debate does not do this moment justice. While Biden met the question with appropriate seriousness, Palin looked like she had fallen off a cliff. She looked frightened, and her instinct was to fill the air with the same cutesy platitudes she had been tossing out all night, that she'd bring "a little bit of reality from Wasilla Main Street there to Washington, D.C.," that she and McCain were a "team of mavericks" who don't agree on everything. It was chilling -- she might as well have said, "I have absolutely no idea." She just barely answered the question -- and it just happens to be the only question that really matters when you're considering a vice-presidential candidate.
--A. Serwer
