oh god, can we just have the election already?

[lagilman]

So, despite my best efforts, I ended up watching the debate, keeping company with the folk on the sff.net chat [who were kind to my poor missing-an-s keyboard]. My summation?

Palin did her I'm Cute! I Smile! I Regurgitate Talking points! routine and managed not to have a train wreck.

Biden? Hammered McCain, not Cutsie Palin, and did so in a way that actually answered the questions with facts and details [or a much as the time allowed]

The polls may say that Palin won because she didn't self-destruct. Me? Before I didn't dislike Biden. Now? I respect him. I may not always, gods know, agree with him...but I respect him. So I'd say Biden 'won' this round, at least at Ch Felidae (Boomer slept through the debate. Pandora thinks Palin's a Stepford Veep). because, damn. "Cheney is the most dangerous VP in American history." And not just when he's out shooting, either.

And, btw, a memo to the GOP? Do NOT try to play the parent card on Joe Biden. He can see your soccer mom of disabled baby and raise you the widowed husband and loving, attentive father of injured children who grew up unscrewed-up.


and yes, I tried to do the drinking game. But man, after the second "soccer mom" and the third "middle class," I just had to pull over and switch to water....

Comments

[neadods.livejournal.com]

I tried to do the drinking game. But man, after the second "soccer mom" and the third "middle class," I just had to pull over and switch to water....

You're a braver woman than I - three minutes in, I figured even drinking water would drown me.

[caryabend.livejournal.com]

And Biden knows the difference between tactics and strategy.

Repeating "Soccer Mom! Soccer Mom!" over and over is a tactic. And boy did it get old and grating fast.

Reiterating at the end of a debate your connection with families, showing honest feelings and compassion, and driving home your understanding of the current pains of the common American, while simultaneously obliterating your opponent offhandedly with, "I know what it's like to be around that kitchen table," is a strategy.

[filamena.livejournal.com]

Actually, we played Palin Bingo. It was awesome even if my husband won.

[kateelliott.livejournal.com]

I think they keep playing the parent card on Biden because the McCain handlers really do believe that libruls have no parent card to play, like they've bought into the fiction that they own that talking point.

[dianora2.livejournal.com]

All the insta-polls are giving Biden a decisive win, thank god.

[lagilman]

"Oh, but she's a WOMAN and therefore she know MORE about being a PARENT."

Yeah, right. There are good parents and there are bad parents and gender is such the smallest part of it...

[lagilman]

I'm more worried about the talking heads than the poll. The polls are from people who are decided and like to play polls. The folk who haven't made up their minds yet are the ones the media's going to influence.

(Honestly, I'm not sure how anyone could not have made their decision at this point. The options have been laid out for you; barring the discloure that one of them is a cannibalistic child abuser, you're not going to get handed a sudden moment of revelation in the last week of the campaign.)

[lagilman]

I blame the sff.netters, who were egging me on.

[arouraleona.livejournal.com]

I just drank through the whole thing. I figured waiting for them to say silly talking points/scripted phrases, and thank goodness since I would have run out of alcohol.

But yeah, I was proud of Biden too, and seriously, why can Palin say Amadinijad and not nuclear? What is up with THAT?... course sometimes she said Ach-madinijad.

[chibiaingeal.livejournal.com]

Actually polls are saying Biden won.

My co-worker agrees with your summation of Palin, as do I.

[jperceval.livejournal.com]

And if you had added every time Palin reminded us she was from "the great state of Alaska," you would have been in a coma.

[neutronjockey.livejournal.com]

You didn't add "Maverick" to the drinking game que?

You would've been FUBAR.

[lagilman]

looking over the chat transcript, I see that at one point I called out "'Maverick' -- DRINK!"

I think I'd already given up at that point, though.

[lagilman]

I admit to having trouble remembering some names.. but then, I don't get to have a) coaches or b) note cards in front of me.

[quarkwiz.livejournal.com]

Even Himself was making disgusted noises at all the "maverick"s and the "nukuler"s. And I decided it would be best if I didn't have anything to drink, or I might not've been able to function this morning.

The other word that got overdone IMHO, and sadly it was by Biden: "fundamental." He said that many, many times; so many that it was indeed starting to annoy me.

[otterdance.livejournal.com]

And, btw, a memo to the GOP? Do NOT try to play the parent card on Joe Biden. He can see your soccer mom of disabled baby and raise you the widowed husband and loving, attentive father of injured children who grew up unscrewed-up.

And his oldest boy just shipped out to Iraq.

[autojim.livejournal.com]

Thankyou, Oh Mighty Ghods of DirecTV, for many hundreds of un-debate-sullied channels to choose from.

Okay, it wasn't a train wreck. Fine. Still, did anyone really learn anything new here? No. Did anyone really learn anything new from the 1st Obama/McCain debate? No. Will anyone really learn anything new from the next two McCain/Obama debates? No.

We are getting into the end game of 20-odd months of masturbatory campaigning and media oversaturated coverage of same. I agree with this post's title 100%. I'm sick to effing DEATH of this crap and just want it over with.

I continue to maintain that we can elect a reasonably telegenic turnip to the Presidency and things will largely continue as they were. No points for saying "We already have. Twice", BTW.

[lagilman]

1. he's not all that telegenic a turnip, IMO.

2. I'm hearing a lot of people saying they learned more about Biden than they knew before, and were impressed by what they saw. So, in some ways it was useful. Will it change anyone's voting? Maybe not. But more information isn't a bad thing....

[autojim.livejournal.com]

1a. I said "reasonably telegenic". Nobody but Paul Newman will be Paul Newman, and he's not even himself anymore.

2a. I understand and appreciate Biden's backstory. I guess if he didn't plagarize anyone, he acquitted himself well.

Obama's now running ads here where he seems to (belatedly, IMO) realize that the candidates are talking about change (and he points to McCain, seemingly forgetting that he's had the word printed in huge bold letters behind every podium he spoke from for most of his campaign) and people are wondering just what kind of change they're talking about. He then does actually speak to some specifics, for which I will give him full credit. I was beginning to despair that Obama couldn't get through a spoken paragraph without at least 1 mention of non-specific change for every three sentences.

[taikyoyo.livejournal.com]

Did you mean to say, an erection?