Sarah Barracuda Strikes Back!

Sarah Palin exceeded expectations in the vice presidential debate on Thursday night -- by which I mean that she didn't vomit on herself. The bar had been set so low for her performance that only copious projectile vomiting could have made her look worse than she has lately.

All things considered I thought it was a draw -- which means that, arguably, Palin wins. The same way that, in the presidential debate, it was also a draw which meant that Obama won. McCain needed to land a knockout punch on Obama, and he didn't lay a glove on him. Palin didn't need to land a knockout blow Thursday night. All she needed to do was stay on her feet and not make an utter fool of herself. And by that standard she was successful.

But is that how it's going to seem in a day or two? Will anyone care in a day or two? The House is supposedly going to vote again on the -- well, whatever they're calling it Friday. I doubt they're calling it a "bailout" because people don't seem to care for that term. But whatever they're calling it, they're voting on it tomorrow, and that's all people will be talking about.

I was favorably impressed with Joe Biden, however, who had to perform an interesting (and easy to overlook) form of rhetorical jiu-jitsu against Palin that was, I think, largely successful. He referred to her solely as "The Governor" which I thought was perfect. He didn't correct her when she made mistakes because it would look condescending and sexist and because he knew that the media would later do it for him. He was respectful and yet he didn't give an inch. But in many ways he was more impressive for what he didn't do than for what he did.

Because what did Sarah Palin do? If you ask me, she sabotaged the ticket. And he just stood there and let her do it.

How did she do it?

By consciously espousing the old, tired, discredited Ronald Reagan philosophy that government isn't the solution, government is the problem. With the economy going into the toilet and people worrying about a recession if not a depression, that's not what they want to hear. They want to hear that government is on their side and has a solid plan to fix what's wrong -- not that they're on their own in a cold, cruel, dog-eat-dog world. All ther "darn its" and "you betchas" in the world can't hide the fact that the philosophy that the McCain-Palin ticket espouses is history -- and they will be soon as well. By 2010 Sarah Palin will be a question in "Trivial Pursuit."

With McCain pulling out of Michigan and Obama pulling ahead in the polls, it looks like this is going to be Obama's election, and that Obama is the man for these times, just as Roosevelt was in 1932 and Kennedy was in 1960. But things are going to get a lot worse before they get better, and I suspect that, sometime in 2009, Obama may be tempted to say to McCain what Kennedy once reportedly said to Barry Goldwater:

"You want this fucking job?"

Tom Moran