Friday editorial: “First, do no harm”
The ghosts of Stephen Douglas and Abraham Lincoln slept soundly last night. The vice presidential debate at Washington University did not threaten their immortal legacy of 1858.
On the other hand, Democrat Joe Biden did not stick his foot in his mouth. Republican Sarah Palin did not ramble into incoherence. In the last 150 years, the currency of expectations has been devalued, and the grand issues of state have been reduced to this: Don’t screw up.
By this mean standard, the debate at Washington University here was a success for both Ms. Palin, the neophyte governor of Alaska, and Mr. Biden, the veteran senior senator from Delaware. The fundamental job for vice presidential candidates in a debate is this: Don’t lose the election for their running mates.
At 9:30 last evening, both Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona and Democratic Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois may have breathed a sigh of relief. Mr. McCain’s may have been a tad louder.
Coming off a disastrous set of interviews with Katie Couric of CBS, Ms. Palin faced a bar of expectations set exceedingly low. She easily cleared it, aiming her folksy “Joe Sixpack,” “hockey mom,” “Say it ain’t so, Joe, there you go again” quips directly at the huge television audience.
She floated like a butterfly but did not sting like a bee, though she tried to every now and then. She also blatantly dodged questions from moderator Gwen Ifill and returned time and again to the talking points she has been repeating on the campaign trail for weeks. Ms. Ifill did not pursue her, nor did the format allow Mr. Biden to question her directly.
If this had been a boxing match, she might have earned points for style. But Mr. Biden easily deflected her best punches and counter-punched hard.
Her biggest mistake came an hour into the 90-minute debate when she suggested that Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden should “stop the blame game” and look forward instead of backward.
Mr. Biden countered with a jab, “The past is prologue,” and then dropped a hard right hand, “How much is John McCain’s policy going to be different from George Bush’s? I haven’t heard anything yet.”
The second, but ultimately more important job for vice presidential candidates is to demonstrate that they’re capable of being president. After all, that’s the only reason we have a vice president.
In that, Mr. Biden clearly was superior. His grasp of issues came through even in a format that limited his usual loquacity to two-minute remarks. His understanding of nuances of diplomacy, the existential threat of nuclear proliferation and even the vagaries of Iranian governance was far more impressive than Ms. Palin’s rote dependence on her talking points.
On the economy, Ms. Palin may have tickled her supporters with her “gosh darn it” colloquialisms — “You go to a kids’ soccer game on Saturday and you betcha you’re going to hear some fear” — but Mr. Biden had his “Main Street” moment, too: “The people get it,” he said of the economy. “They know they’ve been getting the short end of the stick.”
If, as with doctors, the first rule for vice presidential candidates is “First, do no harm,” then the debate was a success for both sides. The Republican base will be thrilled with Ms. Palin’s performance, and the Democrats always knew what they were getting in Joe Biden.
But this election is narrowing to fewer and fewer states. Polls show that an increasing number of voters have made up their minds, which means the key audience for the debate was neither the crowd at Washington University’s field house nor the audience nationwide, but undecided voters in a handful of key states — Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida and perhaps Missouri among them.
Ms. Palin’s performance may have been entertaining to them. Mr. Biden’s surely was reassuring. But in the next 32 days, the two men at the tops of the tickets will have to seal the deal.
Biden was elected to the Senate in 1972, when Palen was 8 years old. He has spent more than half his life in the Senate, while she has spent most of hers in Alaska. Not even the most enthusiastic Palen partisan would expect her to be as knowledgeable as Mr. Biden on the vast array of issues he has confronted in his 36 years as a senator.
So what? You can be brilliant, yet wrong. History is full of brilliant, charismatic leaders who built on a foundation of wrong ideas and did terrible things. Indeed, if the standard for veep is that we need an experienced politician with great depth of knowledge about the issues and mechanics of Washington, then the same standard ought to apply to the President, and the Post should be supporting McCain. While I don’t recall seeing an endorsement yet, we all know who will be endorsed.
Not far into the debate, Biden made a comment that ranks amongst the worst things I’ve ever heard from a politician:
“We should be allowing bankruptcy courts to be able to re-adjust not just the interest rate you’re paying on your mortgage to be able to stay in your home, but be able to adjust the principal that you owe, the principal that you owe.”
For those of us who believe that you should repay what you owe, this is an outrage. For those of us who pay what we owe, greater still. If Bill McClellan forgot his lunch today, and borrowed ten bucks from Eddie Roth, wouldn’t Eddie expect to be repaid ten bucks on Monday? Few would feel it just if, when Messrs. McClellan and Mink returned from lunch, McClellan told Roth this: “Eddie, I spent your ten bucks on lunch. But it was a lousy lunch, and Eric said he though it was only worth five bucks. So I’ll pay you five bucks on Monday.” In truth, this is little different than what Mr. Biden said should be done by federal judges in bankruptcy court. And it is this philosophy - essentially, stealing, with a thin varnish of legal justification - which prevents me from voting for the vast majority of Democrats.
Nick, I find it hard to believe that this is the only reason that you would not vote for most Democrats. You seem to disagree with the democrats on most issues.
On the other hand, you are right on the bankruptcy issue. The reality is that over the long term local housing markets–both the bubbles in CA and FL and the low performers here in the St. Louis region–need readjustments where the mortgage value catches up to prices in a controlled manner where lenders can access quality products–and not the junk that has proliferated in the feeding frenzy of the last 10 years. This will take the sort of public institutions akin to the Resolution Trust Companies of the past, an idea that has support from both the left–progressive economist Bob Kuttner–and the right–Alan Hubbell, former Bush economic advisor.
Having said that, Palin response to this question made even less sense. There didn’t seem to be any content in it either on the original topic–the bankruptcy bill that Congress passed a couple years ago–and the topic of mortgage default that the conversation evolved into. I guess they don’t have bankruptcy and foreclosures in Alaska..
Mr. Kasoff,
I once did a stint as a used car salesman for about a month, until I couldn’t take it anymore. A fellow salesman bragged to everyone that he never let a customer leave the lot without being “upside down” (owing more than what it was worth) in a car. I watched him, and indeed his boast was true. One after another, he would misrepresent, cajole, and outright lie to jack the price up over what they could afford, and strong arm them to commit to it. He was a predator. He was a pro. No mere amateur car-buyer had a chance of getting the better of him. Roughly eighty percent of the cars he sold were later “re-poed,” and towed back to the lot for him to sell again, the dealer keeping all the proceeds previously paid by the defaulting buyer. The salesman enjoyed his job. He made a lot of money and he felt superior to all the sheep he’d fleeced. I’m sure that what is true in the used-car business is true in the mortgage business. For too long, too many sharks have been circling the waters, receiving big bonuses for getting people “upside down” in their houses. You can blame the prey for their naivete and gullibility, but can’t you hold the predators even partially accountable?
As to the debate, am I alone in looking with alarm at Gov. Palin’s proposal to increase vice-presidential power to encroach upon the legislative branch of the government, becoming a de facto 101st senator?
Nick, I couldn’t agree with you more regarding Biden’s comments regarding the magical reduction in principal on bad mortgages. Only a politician could engage in such fantasy with a straight face, and only with the support of the kook media could those who either had no business buying a home in the first place or recklessly bought more home than they could afford be portrayed as “victims” of anybody or anything but themselves. Grow up and take some responsibility for your own actions, for crying out loud.
And speaking of fantasy, this is the second debate in which not a word was spoken about the twin pink elephants overshadowing the room - medicare and social security. How absurdly ironic that politicians on either side bemoan the fiscal irresponsibility of Wall Street while ignoring the looming tsunami of entitlement spending that they have created with their vote- buying pandering to the ignorant and the uninformed. I don’t see either side seriously addressing these issues, and they will ultimately make the current “mother of all financial crises” look like a day at the beach as the Treasury’s printing presses kick into overdrive.
Biden did well? Palin basically called him a liar, and you dont even mention this?
During the democratic Primaries Biden called out O’bama, including telling him he was not “ready” to lead the country, but during the debate, Biden lied and denied those claims by Palin.
The Post Dispatch and the liberal media may ignore this but the American people are watching. We all know that you checked the facts, and know Biden did lie many times during the debate(Macain voting for the Tax increase, Coal,the 1st admendment ,etc)! Your silence is a joke!
We all know that if this wasn’t the case you would have been all over it calling out Palin….
Dont try to re-write the debate, Biden lied over and over on verifiable facts. The Post Dispatch’s response to this is dispicable! This response comes directly from the “spin doctors” on the Far left. Tell me do you get your talking points from the daily Kos?
In the post debate coverage, Dr. Frankk Luntz had a group of St. Louis independents on Fox. The scores for Palin when she talked about herself as a Washington outsider were among the highest positive results on record. McCain needs to do three things:
1. Denounce Washington. Declare that his administration will abandon the Ivy League elites of both parties and bring in fresh blood from the heartland. Continue to say “we’re not going to take it anymore.”
2. Clearly dleininate how his administration will be different from Bush (she started laying the groundwork for that last night)
3. Put the blame for the finanicial crisis back on the Democrats and tie Obama to it through his votes and associations with bums like Raines and Johnson. There is plenty of blame to go around, but he can’t just stand there and allow Obama to blame some generic “Washington (code word Republican) lack of oversight,” when the Dems were just as complicit with the demise of Fannie and Freddie. The O’Reilly tirade against Barney Frank is all over the place and he should play off this.
If he can do this, he will be back in the game. If he continues to play the country club gentleman, he’s toast.
Wow. The thought police are out in force today. At this point I’ve got to assume Eric not only wrote the “editorial,” but that he’s the one who keeps deleting my posts. Has the fact that your writing so transparently identifies you struck a nerve, big guy?
You guys have become a parody of yourselves.
> You guys have become a parody of yourselves.
Bart, you speak of this as though it was a recent event.
I actually don’t agree with the points of the editorial–for example, the line of looking at the past and playing the blame game i thought was pretty good, even if smilin’ joe had a good answer–but outside of the partisanship in the spin alley i didn’t see much coming out of the debate.
it was a wash either way, i bet most of the polls will show that.
partisan democrats wanted palin to be reduced to a quivering mass of incoherence, that didn’t happen, so to that extent palin won. smilin’ joe came across as a professional politicians; however, that’s pretty much what he is. both sides add up the issues of experience and newness in different ways to suit their political needs; we will see, however, on the issues whether the voters want a particular type of change. i tend to think that the democrats will go for somewhat less of a regulation than their partisans accept and the republicans will accept the regulation that they are getting because wall street wants it.
i also tend to think most people have made up their minds–including most of the platform bloggers–and most of this stuff is playing to the crowd. if kicking at post editorial writers helps dull the pain, so much for it, but it feels like inside baseball.