I think Joe Biden just gave the greatest presidential campaign
debate performance I have ever seen. He was absolutely commanding
and absolutely convincing. But (and you’ll have to read all the way
down before I explain this) he gift-wrapped two big opportunities
for the McCain campaign if the campaign is smart enough and tough
enough to exploit them.
I thought Sarah Palin did about as well as she could. She wasn’t
bad. She wasn’t great, by any means. But she was out of her league.
Unfortunately, my opinion of her performance was HIGHER than that
of my “test group.” I watched with two women, both rather
apolitical but both conservative, both of whom wanted her to do
well, both in the mid-thirties to mid-forties age range. They
thought she was absolutely godawful.
Young woman #1: “She’s just not polished enough.”
“ANSWER the question!”
and, at the end: “He smoked her. He smoked her. He smoked
her.”
Young woman #2: “She’s just a calamity.” and again at the end:
“She was calamitous.”
Both young women thought in particular that Palin souned like a
broken record talking about Alaska as an energy state, as if that
is the only subject she really knows well and the rest was just
memorized as if for a test. And both were incredibly annoyed that
she so often strayed from the question. Both women also thought
Biden did a superb job. “I don’t agree with anything he said,” said
Young woman #1, “but he sounded convincing” — and extremely
knowledgeable, in a very reassuring way.
Frankly, I thought Palin was pretty solid for the first third-to
2/5 of the debate, and again for a little portion about 2/3 of the
way into it. She got in a couple of good licks. But by the end, I
wanted it to be over to let her out of her — or my — misery.
So how, after all that, can McCain make hay out of this debate?
Two reasons. First, gay marriage. Second, judges.
Even though Biden in his follow-up said he does not support gay
marriage, Palin smoked him on the exchange. Her answer was just
about perfect. Biden seemed SO overly enthusiastic about gay
visitation rights, etc., that a lot of middle Americans would, I
think, recoil; there’s a difference between benign tolerance and
strong support for same-sex couples. He sounded overenthusiastic
about the latter, and at one point he actually did say he was
talking about rights for couples “in a same sex marriage.” As a
pure political judgment here — not to say whether he is right or
wrong, but just in terms of political impact — I think he overdid
it so much that it will allow McCain’s campaign to bring up the
Defense of Marriage Act, which Obama opposed. This isn’t
gay-bashing. It should NOT be gay-bashing, because gay-bashing is
despicable. But handled soberly, it’s a great issue, and it is the
issue that turned out millions upon millions of voters who made the
difference for George W. Bush in 2004.
Now, judges. I cannot BELIEVE Biden deliberately brought up the
change in his view on what makes a good judge. I can’t believe he
actually said ideology should be a factor. Most Americans strongly
disagree with that. And if the McCain people have any sense, they
will drive a truck through that opening — first, just on the
thought of judges imposing ANY ideology at all, which is unpopular.
Second, as I written time and time and time again, if the
idological or philosophical RESULTS of conservative vs liberal
jurisprudence are put before the public, the public overwhelmingly,
unambiguously, and with great passion supports conservative results
more than liberal ones. Biden made a HUGE mistake in bringing the
issue up, and especially in the way he discussed it. If McCain
doesn’t exploit the opportunity, he’s a fool.
Final verdict: In terms of who won the immediate debate, Biden
by as big a margin as that of Secretariat in the Belmont. But in
terms of who is able to do more to make long-term hay (long-term in
campaign time, meaning in the next four weeks) from the campaign,
the opportunities are there for McCain to do quite well. No one
thing in particular that Biden did or said will be tremendously
commercial-worthy for Obama’s purposes. Nothing that Palin did or
said will provide TV ad fodder that helps Obama drive McCain down
further — there were no major “gaffes” to be exploited, even
though there were times she looked in general out of her league.
But Biden on gay marriage and on judges provided real fodder for
McCain to attack, if he does it effectively, soberly, not nastily
but still forcefully. We’ll see if the McCain folks recognize their
chance.
