NP: Athlete, "Wires"

Two brief comments about last night's VP debate, since someone is giving me a hard time about not saying anything yet.

First, Palin's background as a sportscaster certainly came through. Olbermann had brought up the interesting question pre-debate of how she would do without instant feedback from a crowd, but I think he may have forgotten that she's got experience in television. The way she was staring into the camera delivering some of her lines, I half-expected her to finish with "and now we go to Joe Biden for the weather."

Second, if you had come across any sort of drinking game that involved consuming alcoholic beverages whenever Palin dropped a "g" from the end of the word, your next of kin have my condolences. This is where the "folksy charm" argument proffered by the pundits and ideologues who have declared Palin the clear winner falls completely flat for me. I don't think it's humanly possible to do that dropped "g" thing unintentionally. Maybe once or twice, but not every single time. This makes the parallels between Palin and Dubya that much stronger, because he pretty clearly started exaggerating his Texas twang back around 1999. It also makes me much more skeptical of anyone -- Pat Buchanan, I'm looking at you -- who is won over by her "new, fresh speaking style." You're either being played, or you're being disingenuous.

All in all, I'm with the emerging consensus view that this will, at best, raise the morale of those already voting for McCain/Palin. I don't see it changing the dynamic of the overall race significantly. And wow, the Cubs are looking worse than McCain in Michigan.