Debate

5 minutes to 9pm.
Watching Soledad O'Brien talking about her group of "undecideds" out in Ohio. I find it hard to believe these people do not know who the vote for. Am sorry but these people are in there for the camera and free dinner. Seriously, if you haven't decided you who you're voting for, you've got some serious problem.

8:57 pm
Ahahahahaha. Maegan just twittered that she's watching C-SPAN and playing, "Spot the Latino". I would have called the game "Spot the Beaner".

9:00 pm
Just found out from Ben Smith's blog,  that even though there was talk about having no follow-up questions, Tom Brokaw hasn't accepted those terms. So the candidates are expecting to have follow-ups.

I will be liveblogging, pingcasting and Twittering the debates tonight. So please, drop by to rant and rave the debates.

No wonder I was confused about Sarah Palin's body language. She didn't just sound like she was heavily scripted. She sounded like she was reading cue cards or even a tele-prompter.

Because the cable and network television stations did not show a split screen of the debate, most viewers could not see that, during Joe Biden’s answers, Palin spent almost all her time looking down and studiously reading her notes. But viewers did see that when Palin delivered her answers, she would repeatedly glance down to check her talking points.

ThinkProgress has compiled a video documenting some of the instances where it was clear to the audience that Palin was propped up by written responses.

What's outrageous is that I actually questioned my judgment and bias when I mentioned last night that it looked like she was reading off cards. I couldn't fathom her reading off cue cards she'd have hidden in her jacket.

Wow.

Even though pollsters are saying that VP debates have little impact on outcome of elections, I have to say that last night it was Joe Biden's playground and he drank everybody's milkshake.

Mark (the father of my children) and I were watching the debate last night and were actually blown away by Joe Biden's performance. It wasn't that we didn't think he'd be good coming into the debate. It's just that compared to his performance during the primaries this may have been Biden's best debate performance yet.

Make no mistake though, it wasn't because he was against someone who was because he was against someone with less experience or intellect. Sarah Palin proved she could hold her own against Biden.

Biden had only one major opponent last night and that was himself. He needed to beat the image people had of him as being a bit of a bumbling idiot and it's for that matter that he totally knocked it out of the park.

It really was a great night for the boy from Scranton.

Biden was focused :

Now, with regard to the -- to the health care plan, you know, it's with one hand you giveth, the other you take it. You know how Barack Obama -- excuse me, do you know how John McCain pays for his $5,000 tax credit you're going to get, a family will get?

He taxes as income every one of you out there, every one of you listening who has a health care plan through your employer. That's how he raises $3.6 trillion, on your -- taxing your health care benefit to give you a $5,000 plan, which his Web site points out will go straight to the insurance company.

And then you're going to have to replace a $12,000 -- that's the average cost of the plan you get through your employer -- it costs $12,000. You're going to have to pay -- replace a $12,000 plan, because 20 million of you are going to be dropped. Twenty million of you will be dropped.

So you're going to have to place -- replace a $12,000 plan with a $5,000 check you just give to the insurance company. I call that the "Ultimate Bridge to Nowhere."

yet at times folksy:

John McCain said there would be enough oil to pay for this. John McCain has been dead wrong. I love him. As my mother would say, god love him, but he's been dead wrong on the fundamental issues relating to the conduct of the war.

Yet the two most spectacular moments for Joe Biden came first when he tore into the "Maverick" meme :

Sarah Palin was no light-weight. She did what she needed to do which was to hold her own against Joe Biden and that's exactly what she did. Unfortunately she did so with what I call "playing political footsie".

Whenever she didn't have any substantive to say she'd go all cutesy, wink to the camera, bob her head or tear into a cheerleader cheer for her "boss". Cute for TV but not for actual government. Especially from a woman who allegedly said yesterday that her favorite vice-president was George H. Bush because he eventually went on to becoming President of the United States.

Honey, I don't want this woman near the White House, ESPECIALLY after this infamous moment :

CBS did a poll of uncommitted voters and asked the following :

Who won the debate? 46% say Biden, 21% Palin

Both candidates had their image improve with the debate but the two most important questions of the night were uncategorically in favor of Biden. 

"Who is prepared to be Vice-President?" Before the debate Biden had 81% but his numbers went up to 97% after the debate. Palin gates a passing grade of 55% (that would be a D- or F+) after the debate, up from 39%.

Yet it is the "Who has the ability to be an effective President?" question that is the killer : Biden was at 66% before the debate. He jumped up to 91%. Palin doesn't pass the test at all having gone up to 44% from a low of 35%.

Just got this email :

“This was a clear victory for Barack Obama on John McCain’s home turf. Senator McCain offered nothing but more of the same failed Bush policies, and Barack Obama made a forceful case for change in our economy and our foreign policy.

While Senator McCain wants to keep giving huge tax cuts to corporations and said nothing about the challenges Americans are facing in their daily lives, Barack Obama will be a fierce advocate for tax cuts for the middle class, affordable health care, and a new energy economy that creates millions of jobs.

While foreign policy was supposed to be John McCain’s top issue, Barack Obama commanded that part of the debate with a clear call to responsibly end a misguided war in Iraq so that we can finish the fight against al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

John McCain needed a game-changer tonight, and by any measure he didn’t get it.”

It's part of the reason why I want to upgrade the site --so I can better integrate it to the services I use like Twitter.

How can you catch what I am writing? Open an account at Twitter.com and once you do that, "follow me" at http://twitter.com/blogdiva.

And with that in mind, who do you think is going to do better job, Barack Obama or John McCain? What do you want to see your candidate do? What do you expect them to do?