Ex-Bush Officials: Biden Won The Debate

The consensus from the debate seems to be that while Sarah Palin exceeded the exceedingly low expectations set for her, Joe Biden won the night. The word comes from former members of the Bush administration and even John McCain's former press secretary.

Torie Clarke, who worked with McCain back in Arizona and with the Bush Administration's Department of Defense, had the following remarks on ABC:

"I'm so surprised at what we are talking about before and after the debate. Before the debate the speculation was all on Sarah Palin, how well can she do, can she answer the tough questions? Nobody was paying attention to Joe Biden. I think Joe Biden had his best night tonight. He came with one mission, and that was to go after John McCain, and he did it, backed up by facts. I think he did a better job tonight of tying McCain to the Bush administration than Obama did last week.

Matthew Dowd, who worked for George Bush's communications team while in the White House, followed Clarke and he too agreed that the Delaware Democrat took the evening.

"I think, you know, I agree with her on this. I think Sarah Palin did reasonably well. The death spiral she has been on for the last week, she survived. She's lived another day. She did well. But I think, when the polls come out in the next two, three days, Joe Biden won this debate."

Comments

[cobraxus]

if this debate were a driving test then Palin blew through every red light and stop sign but earned points for not killing anyone or crashing her car into a brick wall.

[luvienne]

I find it strange how we are allowing the jobs of president and vice president be dumbed down so Palin-Mccain can compete. When will common sense come in? They are both an embarassment. If you think Bush lowered our prestige what do you think these two pretenders will do?

[LeeCalif]

Ya, but both sides scare me. Vote Nader/Gonzalez 2008 Check out the website.

[layman]

It's the substance, stupid, not the empty flash talks.

[DrBillo]

there is no doubt that Senator Biden has the knowledge to be the next President if needed--Governor Palin could run a cheer leading camp on the White House lawn--whom would Americans want if the choice came down to these two--Biden by a mile!!!

[robeson]

Biden Won The Debate
you betcha

[ogema]

I can't believe Palin said WE LOVE ISRAEL, when clearly her church does not, because they do not believe in Jesus Christ. Her hypocrisy is more than I can tolerate. She talks about her choice to have a special needs child, her daughter is chosing to have a child out of wed lock, her gay friend choses to be gay. Well Sarah since you get to CHOOSE, doesn't the rest of the women in the United States get to choose???????

[mccainstoblame]

Biden for President!

http://myrealitytelevision.com/2008/09/26-presidential-debate-2008-how-can-liberals-say-obama-won/

[BillCarson]

If anyone's still wondering who won last nights debate, here's the latest numbers from intrade http://www.intrade.com/

Obama: 68.1 up 3.1
McCain: 30.2 down 4.2

Obama won.

[claudebussy]

I wish they had asked Palin if she really believes in witches since the pastor of her church is an avowed witch hunter in real life and ran a woman out of town he accused of being a witch. Also, the pastor prayed that witches would not mess with her as he laid his hands upon her which can be seen on youtube.com
My god how can this person be taken seriously, witch hunting!!! Spread the word.

[jymfrancais]

And they call that a Debate?..p­lease
I'M from France, debate in France, one
round table with the candidates facing eachother
One moderator who choose the subject and let the
candidates go at it.
PS: the round table is your "normal" size kitchen table...

[deliriousgod]

we call that 'duelling banjos'.

[chicagodan]

You don't have to go to France to see a real debate ... there are hundreds of them held in American high schools every weekend. I've been a (volunteer) high school debate coach for 20 years, and I've coached dozens of girls (aged 13 to 17) who would have wiped the floor with Palin last night (and who never needed some hand holding format to "hold their own" over 90 minutes against the boys.) To say Palin did "better than expected" is to insult half the population in this country. We're really not this stupid a country, we just have a political and media class that insists on treating us like we are.

[Querent]

It wasn't low expectations of Palin's sex, it was low expectations of HER. She has repeatedly shown herself to be mediocre.

While Governor, Palin has lived away from the capital most of the time, while billing the government for a per diem. I guess you could call this an absence bonus. If she became president, would she try to run the US government from Wasilla? Would she need to hire a city-manager to run the White House for her? Are there any limits to the ridiculousness of the behavior Republicans will try to defend?

And isn't this paradigmatic? As always, the usual rules don't apply to a Republican "leader". She was a mayor. The utter incompetence of her performance as a mayor somehow doesn't diminish the value of that "experience". She need not show even the shallowest conversancy with the issues. Republicans evidently think that their sound-bite ideology is so potent that a Republican Vice President need have mastery ONLY of the slogans.

We can have a Republican "leader," or we can have rules. We can't have both.

[deanatali]

Palin is the talk of the town at the moment. How would you rate Palin compared to Biden? Regarding her take on domestic issues, economy, and her idea of American reformation, more of Palin can be found in www.dailysource.org/palin.

[seabass]

gosh golly geeeezzzzzzz it's hands down ...BIDEN WINS! OBAMA/BIDEN= AMERICA WINS!

take the liar with you back to the tundra...w­ink wink...cha­rlie!

[lisakaz2]

I'd like to know what "tough questions" Palin actually answered? Winking and spouting talking points and deriding your adversary is not a debate strategy, certainly not one that should be evaluated for "winning." Why isn't it a non-starter?

[Scalawag]

I want to hear more regarding Failin's usage of a Blackberry in last night's debate. Is this true? I didn't notice it, but of course I wasn't looking for it.

[Pupadup4oBama]

well, she was definitely looking at notes....t­hat's fer sher - ya betcha!