I Watched the Vice Presidential Debate and All I Got Was This Lousy Headache…

(Click HERE to see the entire debate, divided into 17 parts.)

At 9 PM last night, I turned my television channel to Comedy Central to watch a brand new comedy show.

It stared some old white guy as a man with a long-term job looking to get a promotion.  He meets up with a folksy female, an up-and-comer who, while not too tested on the job, had enough down-home charm to be likable to everyone who came across her. 

Anyway, in this episode, the old guy and the younger woman engaged in a polite but heated debate about their prospective supervisors, and which one was more qualified to run their company.  The old guy, a time-tested vet at the business, told the young woman that his supervisor would be better at creating company policies and seeing to it that everyone was treated fairly. 

Meanwhile, the younger woman talked her folksy talk to the old guy, calling him out of touch while, at the same time, promoting the values and character her much, much older supervisor had that would make him more qualified. 

A third friend would occasionally ask these two co-workers questions about their bosses. For example: “How would your boss handle the money situation our company is facing?”  The old guy would give direct answers to the question – “My boss would see to it that those making more than x-amount a year would have to contribute more to the 401K verses the less-paid employees” – while the woman would give… well, whatever answer she felt like – “”This company has a money problem… but let’s talk about how we’re going to keep the energy flowing through this building instead!”

Back and forth, back and forth they went for about 90 minutes, having questions thrown at them and answering (or not answering) questions… and then, the show ended.

Then I looked at my TV… and I realized: this wasn’t Comedy Central – this was CNN!  This was a REAL debate!!  And these weren’t sitcom characters – these were REAL LIFE political characters in a debate dealing with THIS country!

And that’s when the headache kicked in…

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So, who won the debate?  It really depends on who you ask.

I don’t consider myself a Republican or a Democrat because I don’t like the idea that I’d vote for a candidate simply because their name was the one chosen by a majority of my party.  I like to study the issues. 

At the same time, though, I DO like to observe how both parties spin things to make it work in their favor and/or claim victory.  And so it was with the debates last night.

If you went to CNN, they were willing to point out the pros and cons of both Palin’s and Biden’s arguements and debating tactics.  A pretty fair assessment of both parties’ candidates.  However, if you went to Fox News – who, for all accounts is a pro-pro-PRO-Republican network – their assessment was that Biden did “okay,” but that Palin was “flawless.”

Really, Fox News? FLAWLESS??

How about the fact that she rarely gave a direct answer to the moderator’s questions?  How about the fact that many of her facts were eskewed and not completely accurate?  I’m not saying Joe Biden didn’t do the same from time to time… but to call Palin’s debate performance “flawless” is like giving a crayon to someone with arthritis, then claiming the straight line they just tried to draw has no bumps in it!

But of course, the press had to praise Sarah’s performance more than Biden’s. Not because she did better than HIM; it’s because she did better than most people expected.  That’s kind of easy to do, though, when people’s expectation of your debate performance is akin to a limbo pole sitting on the ground.  It doesn’t make it that hard for her to “raise the bar,” now does it?

Just because she didn’t make a complete fool of herself, though, doesn’t mean she did a good job.  We still don’t know any specifics about what John McCain’s plan would be to help the economy.  We still don’t know if McCain would ever even ATTEMPT to get the troops out of Iraq (my guess: not bloody likely).  And we STILL don’t know how helpful she’d be as his vice president. 

All we really know is the constant soundbites she repeated over and over at the debate: she’s a “Maverick,” she’s from Alaska, she’s a Washington outsider, she wants to do something about energy, and she’s a “Hockey Mom.”  That’s five, people – I call BINGO!

As for Biden, he had some mess-ups to, though not as noticible as Palin’s.  He kept making references to how McCain is similar to George Bush.  Personally, I’ve always thought that was a terrible strategy.  In case people forgot, Bush has been in office for 8 years.  And while it will forever be debated whether or not he actually WON the first term, he DID get elected in 2004.  This was AFTER the first four years where he was already doing a not-so-great job.

I say that to say, as much as the Obama camp likes to talk about bringing “change,” the reality is, most people prefer more of the same.  They’d rather go on living a personal hell that’s known to them verses an untested change that, in their minds, could be WORSE than what they’re already used to. 

Think about how many women stay with men who abuse them, or how many guys constanly date the wrong type of women.  They may SAY they want to change, but there’s a certain comfort in at least KNOWING what you’re going to deal with. Therefore, making the arguement that McCain is like Bush could actually hinder Obama in the long run.

With that said, though, Biden was clearly the more experienced debator of the two people onstage last night.  That’s why he doesn’t get as much credit as Palin.  It’s like if Michael Jordan faced off against an NBA newcomer and they tied.  Newcomer gets props for not losing, while MJ loses a bit of cred for not pummeling the new guy – or, girl in this case.

One thing is for certain, though: after watching 90 minutes of the V.P. back-and-forth rumble, I’m glad they’re not having any more.  I really only watch these things to have references for the Saturday Night Live skits that parody these outings, but I hate when the actual debates are so packed with illogical nonsense, they almost make SNL pointless!

-Aaron P. Taylor