I don’t much like TV news.  In the UK they tork to u laik a 5 yr old and in the US it’s all whizz bang graphics and nitpicking over the minor semantics of soundbites (which, by the way, I will be doing myself at the end of this post).  Thankfully in this age of the interwebs I was able to stream a live, unedited, unanchored feed from CLTV.  Interestingly the stream had about 30 minutes of padding either side of the actual debate and I was able to uncover such trivia as the fact that a number of stage mics were held up with zip tags (“don’t cut that too close to the wire Hank”) and that some of the audience had found the debate rather an ordeal (“I dunno bout you but I’m ready to get the hell out” guffaws).

A potentially boring moment at the start where debate chair Gwen Ifill and the audience sat in complete silence for almost 15 minutes waiting for the start was enlivened by the arrival of a fire engine outside my apartment.  Reebok and I relaxed after the jovial bunch of firefighters casually sauntered from the suspect flat joking about what a douche the tenant was.

So what of the actual debate.  This is the first unfiltered look I’ve had at either of the VP candidates and I was hoping for the kind of gaffe-filled funfest you’d expect if the Duke of Edinburgh were debating against Cheryl Baker.  Sadly it wasn’t quite as good as that but I did learn a lot.

Biden for his part was very strong speaker, and having seen him in action I’m a little disappointed that he’s not running for the top spot.  He went into several policy specifics, in attempt to both befuddle Palin and refute the charge that his ticket’s platform contains too much Blairesque hot air.  I thought that was a smart move on his part.  Less smart was constantly banging on about Bush – Palin quite rightly called him out on it but he still kept coming back for more.  However think he just about managed to save it at the bell by launching a pointed attack on McCain’s maverick image.

An unexpected moment came as he choked up talking about a personal tragedy, in which he lost his wife and baby daughter in a car crash.  In that one moment he wiped out all of Palin’s chummy winks and cheeky (and largely irrelevant) references to her hockey mom image, supposedly one of her greatest strengths.  If that was a calculated move, it was a master stroke, but it didn’t come across that way for me.  I wonder if he’s ever pulled that trick before…

Palin, for a secret weapon, is not being deployed well.  It’s been said before that the McCain campaign are so scared that she’s going to say something stupid that they have coached all the life out of her – and apart from her appeal to the religious wing of the Republican base, her connection with ordinary people was supposed to be one of her strong points.  Time and again she awkwardly answered questions with a speech that was both unrelated to the original question and very obviously rehearsed – I kept expecting her to finish up with “…and I approve this message”.  Even before Biden turned on the waterworks, her mateyness seemed artificial and forced.

Before the debate it was suggested that the best Biden could hope for was a draw – a win in the debate for him would end up as a net lose because he would appear to be a bully.  I think he pulled it off though – working through the details of his own policies as Palin stumbled through hers, and saving his most vicious attacks for McCain and Bush.

After the jump I’ll leave you with a few of the candidates’ most incomprehensible quotes.  Can you guess what they are trying to say?

(more…)