There are hockey moms and there are single dads.
The tone of last Thursday's debate completely shifted in the last five minutes when Joe Biden became emotional about his family. Until then, it seemed Palin would clearly emerge on top through her continuous eye-contact with the camera and her cloying engagement of the home audience with the "you-and-me against him-and-Washington" schtick.
But Biden's escape from Washington-speak shifted the whole basis of comparison. His emotion in the last few minutes set up a new measure, between genuine feeling and folksiness. If Palin was winning the audience up to that point, the difference in emotional depth would not have escaped anyone.
Sleeper highlight of the evening?
Surprisingly, it was how the Biden family neutralized the PR power of the Palin family in the post-debate milling around. Who woulda' thought? Thursday night's "post game" visuals recast the RNC Palin family extravaganza (1, 2, 3) as just that, an overly self-conscious series of manufactured photo-ops.
If partly calculated, it was also touching the way the Biden clan hung out with Gwen Ifill in light of the pounding she took from conservative pundits the past few days.
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