The Great [VP] Debate of 2008

Last night was an interesting and entertaining if not slightly confusing debate, thankfully the only one between Joe "From-hard-scrabble-Scranton" Biden and Sarah "wink-wink-participles-not-ending-in-g,-Joe-Six-Pack,-Hockey-Mom" Palin. Now it is somewhat (by 'somewhat' I mean 'completely') obvious that Joe Biden won that debate on the basis of actually having a sensible and factual answer to every question asked rather than employing mealy mouthed generalisms in every other sentence. That he was able to do this without at any point seeming condescending to to someone of incredibly low intelligence speaks a whole lot for Biden's restraint and self-composure.

I did find myself confused several times as to what exactly Palin was saying. A number of times, her answer was incoherent enough that even my 8, 11, and 12-year old children wondered, "What?" to her rambling, nonsensical answers to the most basic questions. After all, Debate Camp can teach you how to answer questions by deflecting and redirecting them, but no week-long training can teach you the fundamental rules of applying logic to a debate environment if you're not accustomed to using logic and facts to back up your arguments in the first place.

As far as ratings go, the Palin-Biden debate was the highest-rated political debate EVER, even bypassing the 1st Obama-McCain debate of September 26, 2008. I included the graphic above summarizing the totals by network with ABC getting 13.1 million viewers at the high end, CBS and Fox News with 11.1 million viewers for a tie in the middle, and MSNBC getting the lowest viewership of 4.4 million viewers. All told, nearly 70 million folks watched the proceedings.

In post-debate coverage, the NY Times provides a unique way of reviewing the debate. A reader can click on any portion of the debate text and will be taken to the corresponding portion of the debate TV footage.