Okay ,okay, so Sarah Palin didn't fall on her face. Given the format, for her to fail big in last night's vice-presidential debates would have taken a
miracle. But the two post-debate instant polls, from
CBS and
CNN, give telling results.
CNN, in a national sounding, had Joseph Biden's performance preferred over Palin's 51-36, about the same margin by which viewers favored Barak Obama's over John McCain's (51-38) in the debate that preceded Obama's recent surge in the electoral polls. CBS, sampling undecided voters, not surprisingly got a "tied" response from 33 per cent. But those "undecideds" willing to name a winner chose Biden two to one; the actual percentages were 46 to 21, Biden over Palin. After the prior debate, CBS had the undecideds favoring Obama over McCain only slightly less strongly, 39-25.
In terms of her "preparedness" to be president, with the CBS uncommiteds Palin brought her numbers only up to 44 per cent; CBS reports that "In contrast, almost all uncommitted voters think Biden would be an effective president." Only 42 per cent of CNN respondents ended by considering Palin qualified.
We'll know more early next week, as the debate works any effects it might have on voting trends in the electoral polls, but on the face of it, last night the Obama-Biden ticket got a boost. And as a number of commentators have pointed out, as each debate is checked off, the opportunities for McCain and Palin to regain ground diminishes.
Still, amidst all the good news for Democrats, one statistic leaps out: in the CNN poll, 84 per cent of respondents said that Palin exceeded expectations. Remarkable, no? She showed herself unqualified, and that result was better than viewers had anticipated. On what were the astoundingly low initial expectations based? Not Palin's convention speech, which wowed her audience. No, voters' impressions of Palin had been shaped by Katie Couric's interviews and, perhaps, the Saturday Night Live reworking of them.
The 84 per cent figure is a tribute not to Sarah Palin, who still looks unfit to hold office, but to the legitimate power of the press. Couric unmasked Palin, and not through "gotcha" questions but by asking, in effect, "What newspaper do you read?" Perky, farewell. To my mind, Couric has earned herself a Pulitzer Prize.
Regarding curiosity, wisdom, and the rest - qualities I referred to in my posting yesterday and about which readers demurred - The New York Times ended its lead editorial today with these two sentences: "The problem with Ms. Palin's candidacy, which she underscored in her appearance at the debate on Thursday night, is not that she didn't attend a fancy school or go backpacking in Europe after college. It is her disdain for knowledge, education, experience and contemplative leadership." My opinion precisely.
Perhaps there was a brouhaha at the Times over that tartly expressed view. The on-line posting of the editorial omits the print version's powerful final two paragraphs.
Addendum — For those who do not have access to a hard copy of the Times editorial, I am transcribing the original ending here, beginning with the final sentence of the antepenultimate graf.The style is harsh; I assume that a determined writer slipped this material past the board (the uncharacteristic repetition of "shocking" is a clue) and was later reined in. But here goes, from the "newspaper of record," an extraordinary indictment:
“Picking Ms. Palin was either an act of incredible cynicism or appallingly bad judgment.
“The ensuing weeks cemented those images in our minds. Ms. Palin initially injected some energy into the McCain campaign, especially among members of the right-wing Republican base, who never liked or trusted the Arizona senator — and still do not. Then, she began lurching from one embarrassing public appearance to another, culminating in her shocking performance in interviews with Katie Couric. In those exchanges, Ms. Palin was inarticulate and shockingly unable to answer the most basic questions about government policy and even her own political philosophy.
“The Republicans have tried to present the negative reaction to Ms. Palin as a matter of liberal elites sneering at someone who does not share their privileged backgrounds. That is a distraction. The problem with Ms. Palin’s candidacy, which she underscored in her appearance at the debate on Thursday night, is not that she didn’t attend a fancy school or go backpacking in Europe after college. It is her disdain for knowledge, education, experience and contemplative leadership.”
