Sarah Palin exceeds expectations -- and still loses

Debating Joe Biden, Palin avoids another train wreck, delivering Republican talking points with robotic determination. But she also fails to convince undecided voters to stop their movement toward Obama.

Editor's note: You can find Salon's complete coverage of Sarah Palin here.

By Mike Madden

Read more: Politics, News, Joseph Biden, 2008 election, Sarah Palin, Mike Madden

Reuters/Rick Wilking

Sen. Joe Biden and Gov. Sarah Palin appear onstage during the vice-presidential debate in St. Louis Oct. 2, 2008.

Oct. 3, 2008 | There were two debates going on in St. Louis Thursday night. Joe Biden was debating John McCain. And Sarah Palin was debating Sarah Palin -- at least the version of her that most of America has seen on TV for the last few weeks.

As far as those particular battles went, they both might have won. Biden was ruthless in going after McCain on the economy and on foreign policy, all but ignoring Palin to focus on the top of the ticket and present contrast after contrast between McCain and Barack Obama. (And a few between Obama and George W. Bush for good measure.) It may have been the most disciplined performance of Biden's political career -- though given his proclivity for embarrassing gaffes, that's admittedly a low bar. And speaking of low bars, Palin cleared hers. This was not the Sarah Palin who was stumped when asked, just a few days ago, to name a single Supreme Court case she disagreed with or to list a newspaper she read. Yes, she got a little shaky when the questions strayed too far into the details of foreign policy, and she frequently seemed to be pushing the "play" button on preprogrammed talking points. Still, the meltdown even some Republicans feared ahead of the debate didn't materialize.

But overall, that probably adds up to a win for Biden -- or rather, for Obama. (Undecided voters insta-polled by various networks thought Biden won, by pretty hefty margins.) Palin had so much work to do convincing voters she belonged on the stage that she wasn't able to be as effective a messenger for McCain as Biden was for his ticket. She might have met a basic standard of competence, but only a cynic (or a McCain aide) would say that gave her the edge. With Obama building on his lead in national and battleground state polls every day, another debate -- like the first presidential encounter last week -- that did little to change the overall dynamic of the race wasn't what McCain needed.

From the moment Palin walked onstage and asked Biden, "Hey, can I call you Joe?" she projected a folksiness that constantly threatened to tip over from "authentic" to "a little overdone," all delivered in the kind of nasal snow-belt honk that won Frances McDormand an Oscar in "Fargo." (For instance, immediately after greeting Biden, she blew a kiss at someone -- either moderator Gwen Ifill, which seems implausible, or more likely, Alaska's "First Dude" in the front row.) That tipping point probably came around the time she spouted this line, which sounded like something out of "Leave it to Beaver" meets "Hardball": "Say it ain't so, Joe, there you go again pointing backwards again. You [prefaced] your whole comment with the Bush administration. Now, doggone it, let's look ahead." Sometimes her folksy language got a little garbled -- like when she used what is evidently a favorite phrase and said mortgage lenders were "rearing that head of abuse."

She might have undone whatever good will she earned with her "aw, shucks" Wasilla hockey mom ways, though, when she utterly failed to react after Biden choked up while discussing the death of his first wife and their daughter. "The notion that somehow, because I'm a man, I don't know what it's like to raise two kids alone, I don't know what it's like to have a child you're not sure is going to -- is going to make it -- I understand," he said, after Palin said her experience "as a mom" helped persuade McCain to pick her for the ticket. "I understand, as well as, with all due respect, the governor or anybody else, what it's like for those people sitting around that kitchen table. And guess what? They're looking for help. They're looking for help. They're not looking for more of the same." Palin's response was ice cold: "People aren't looking for more of the same. They are looking for change. And John McCain has been the consummate maverick in the Senate over all these years." For that matter, so was the way she brought up, apropos of not very much, Biden's remark in July that offshore oil drilling was an attempt to "rape the continental shelf." And the way she -- not Biden -- brought up his wife, Jill. "I know education you are passionate about with your wife being a teacher for 30 years, and God bless her," Palin said. "Her reward is in heaven, right?" (That was followed immediately by Palin giving "a shout out" to her brother's elementary school students.)

Clearly, Palin came prepared with little time-bomb attack lines from McCain strategist Steve Schmidt, set to detonate at specific cues. When Biden blasted the Bush administration's Middle East policy -- "It has been an abject failure" -- Palin had a line ready that had absolutely nothing to do with the region. "When we talk about the Bush administration, there's a time, too, when Americans are going to say, 'Enough is enough with your ticket,' on constantly looking backwards, and pointing fingers, and doing the blame game," she said. "For a ticket that wants to talk about change and looking into the future, there's just too much finger-pointing backwards to ever make us believe that that's where you're going." When Biden promised to end the war, Palin had another zinger ready: "Your plan is a white flag of surrender in Iraq and that is not what our troops need to hear today, that's for sure."

She had apparently been coached to head back to a few safe topics whenever she could, regardless of what the question was. So when Ifill asked her about what promises she and McCain had made that the $700 billion Wall Street bailout might crimp, her answer was all about how she broke up oil monopolies in Alaska. A few minutes later, she started talking about energy again, in response to a question about bankruptcy laws.

Next page: "He has been no maverick on the things that matter to people's lives"