Scheiber's Reaction to the VP Debate

Noam Scheiber has a great analysis of the VP debate in this New Republic article.

No question Palin helped herself tonight, but that's only because she had so far to climb. If you're grading on anything other than a massive curve, Biden wins hands down.

The beauty of Biden is that he can go blow for blow with Palin on ordinary Joe-ness, then actually know what he's talking about when he answers questions. Palin talks about the mean streets of Wasilla, Biden talks about the mean streets of Scranton. Palin talks about her son in Iraq, Biden talks about his son in Iraq. Palin talks about being the mother of a child with special needs, Biden talks about being a widower with two badly injured boys. Every time you thought she might claim an emotional advantage, Biden evened the emotional score.

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My completely impressionistic take on Palin's performance tonight is that it mirrorred her campaign performance so far (if not quite as dramatically): When Palin started off, you thought, "Wow, she seems so fresh--so human and easy to relate to. How can we compete with that?" Then, as the debate wore on, you thought, "Hmm, okay, she still seems human, but not quite what I'm looking for in a vice president." And, by the end, as the vacuous answers piled up, it was more like, "Good God, keep this woman away from the Oval Office." Which is the story of the last month, too.

Palin just isn't a candidate who wears well over any extended period of time, whether it's a 90-minute debate or a 60-day campaign. The reason is that she only has one mode: human and relateable. That's fine when the topic is middle-class pain. But there are whole classes of issues--foreign policy chief among them--where human and relateable aren't what you're looking for, even if you're an uninformed voter.