Tag Archives: Joe Biden

After the Debate: Assessing Biden vs. Palin

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Yer darn tootin'!

Yer darn tootin!

UPDATED AGAIN: Ratings? Huge. Biggest debate in 16 years, according to early numbers.

UPDATED: It’s a draw!

That seems to be the consensus from people I’ve talked to/heard from since last night. In our conversation on “Today’s THV This Morning,” Charles Crowson quoted one poll (of course there are many out there this morning) that say 33 percent called the Joe Biden-Sarah Palin debate a tie.

(Click here to see video of the segment.)

I agree with Bryan Jones, who commented to this post saying that, “Biden won on reason. Palin won on feeling.” Palin turned in a markedly better performance than her previous television news interviews suggested, depsite often getting bogged down in talking points and her folksy catch phrases (and the winking — oh, the winking). But she held her own with a seasoned debater in Biden, whose experience talking (and talking, and talking) no one doubts.

Biden, meanwhile, kept his focus, doing what veep candidates are supposed to do: take the fight to the top of the opposing party’s ticket. Palin was almost a non-issue for him.

Still, each candidate got their shots in, and each scored points in a debate that was more lively than the one we saw between Barack Obama and John McCain. Part of that owes to the veep candidates’ larger-than-life personalities, and part of it owes, again, to what veep candidates are supposed to: take on the other ticket, be the attack dog.

Bottom Line

But in the end, despite the more vigorous exchanges between Biden and Palin than between Obama and McCain, the two sides seemed much warmer toward each other. There was Palin’s, “Mind if I call ya Joe?” greeting at the start, and that fascinating scene after the debate, where both the Biden and Palin families hung out on stage meeting and talking to one another.

In the end, neither side probably won many new supporters. But I don’t think they lost any, either.

Arkansas Reaction

Palin did well, Ifill was fine and maybe Biden should be atop the ticket. Good work! [The Arkansas Project]

Palin wins by ‘a landslide’ [The Citizens Journal]

She takes a bite outta Biden, you betcha! [The Tolbert Report]

Brantley: Palin did ‘reasonably well,’ Biden ‘even likeable’ [Arkansas Times]

I doubt many votes moved tonight [Under the Dome]

‘Palin, well scripted, stood up for 90 minutes which, in reality, is a victory for her.’ [Blake's Think Tank]

Video

Luntz focus group: Palin is ready [Fox News via YouTube]

Debate video clip round-up: sections of the debate arranged by topic [Politico]

Palin’s failed cute: ‘Say it ain’t so, Joe!’ [Gawker]

The three-minute debate [Time]

Just the Facts, Ma’am

Fact checking the debate [Factcheck.org]

Some facts adrift in debate [Associated Press]

The facts, the inaccuracies [NYT via Mercury News]

Reality check on the veep debate [CBS News]

Around the Nation

Fineman: Palin scores points, but didn’t win [Time]

Klein: Palin was fine, but this debate was no contest [Time]

A tale of two debates … They both survived [Newsweek]

Stanley: A candidate recaptures her image [New York Times]

Kurtz: Palin digs herself out [Washington Post]

Nagourney: The GOP survives the test [New York Times]

Courting the kitchen table [Washington Post]

Balz: Palin delivers but doubts linger [Washington Post]

You betcha she can debate [Politico]

Arena: How did they do? [Politico]

Palin meets expectation but still falls short [Politico]

Palin: Democrats looking back [Bloomberg]

Reaction roundup [Arkansas Times]

The liveblog [Wonkette]

Original post, and comments, after the jump.

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Tonight: Sarah Palin vs. Joe Biden in the Veep Debate

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Happening tonight. While the debate party we attended last week was skewed toward Obamaniacs, tonight Laura and I will be hunkered down with some burgers and cheese dip at a watch party organized by McCain-Palin supporters. Should be fun.

Tomorrow morning around 6, I’m scheduled to be on “Today’s THV This Morning” with Charles Crowson to talk about the debate — some Friday-morning quarterbacking to take us into the weekend.

It goes without saying that this debate is the talk to the town, and might prove to be the ratings juggernaut that the Obama-McCain debate last week wasn’t. So what are they saying about Palin, Biden and tonight’s match-up?

Here goes …

From Arkansas

Key Palin accomplishments the media ignores [The Citizens Journal]

Working the ref: On Ifill and the debates [Arkansas Times]

Watch party at the West End! [Under the Dome]

The Sarah Palin Question

Women ex-governors divided on Palin [Politico]

Roger Simon: 10 Questions for Sarah Palin [Politico]

Past debates show Palin confident, fluent, vague [New York Times]

Palin at the debate: voters doubt her readiness [Associated Press]

Video: Palin’s greatest hits [Talking Points Memo]

The Joe Biden Factor

Biden is experienced in debates, but gets tripped up by spontaneity [New York Times]

Biden must stay in ‘comfort zone’ [Baltimore Sun]

Biden camp preps: gender not the issue [Washington Post]

Palin will use Biden’s own words against him [ABC News]

Biden has tendency to ‘talk forever,’ say ‘stupid’ things [The Weekly Standard]

The Debate

Politico’s Arena: How should Joe handle Sarah? How should Sarah handle Joe? What questions would you ask?

Does the veep race matter? Could affect the presidential race? [Politico]

Palin’s spin team: those on call for post-election spin [Hotline]

Watching a train wreck? Between Biden and Palin, the gaffes could pile up [Politico]

Veep candidates’ personalities fuel interest in debate [Hartford Courant]

Debate will test the mettle of Palin, Biden [San Francisco Chronicle]

Palin has to show understanding of issues; Biden has to connect [The New Republic]

The Moderator

Don’t blame Ifill if veep debate sucks [Slate]

Gwen Ifill’s impartiality questioned [Associated Press]

Ifill urged to step aside [Washington Times]

The Obamas: Portrait of an American Family [Essence]

McCain on Ifill: I wish they’d picked someone else [Politico via Huffington Post]

Related

Idaho J-school Prof: Palin’s wrong about ethics [Portfolio]

Palin’s college daze: Why 5 colleges? [Slate]

Sarah Palin has nothing to lose tonight [Gawker]

Drinking game! [Wonkette]

Google's 'In Quotes' Tracks McCain's, Obama's Words

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Just in time for the elections, Google Labs rolls out a neat little tool called In Quotes, which allows readers to search for the U.S. presidential candidates quotes, as compiled by news sources, by various topics.

So, you wanna know what John McCain and Barack Obama have to say about health care? Just plug that term into the search window here, and Google does the rest, fetching a variety of one-liners from the candidates on that topic. The “spin” button will refresh that search, showing you even more quotations. And, you can do the same trick with Joe Biden/Sarah Palin or any other number of combinations between various U.S. political figures.

Google explains:

These quotations are a valuable resource for understanding where people in the news stand on various issues. Much of the published reporting about people is based on the interpretation of a journalist. Direct quotes, on the other hand, are concrete units of information that describe how newsmakers represent themselves. Google News compiles these quotations from online news stories and sorts them into browsable groups based on who is being quoted.

Similar to article selection and placement on Google News, quotes and their speakers are determined automatically by a computer program and we don’t guarantee the completeness or accuracy of the information you may see. The dates you see represent when the article in which the quote appears was added to Google News.

I like to see Google experimenting with stuff like this. As Nov. 4 draws nearer, more people will be looking for information on where the candidates stand on scores of issues, and this tool might not be a bad starting place.

(A version of this post appears today on The Ladder.)

John McCain Suspends Campaign, Wants to Delay Debates to Deal with Financial Crisis

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Wow:

Sen. John McCain said he will “suspend” his presidential campaign on Thursday and will return to Washington to focus on the unfolding economic crisis. In the meantime, he called for a delay in the presidential debate scheduled for Friday night in Mississippi. Sen. McCain also called on his Democratic rival Barack Obama to join him back in the capital. “It has become clear that no consensus has developed to support the administration’s proposal. I do not believe that the plan on the table will pass as it currently stands, and we are running out of time,” the Arizona senator said in statement issued by the campaign. “Tomorrow morning, I will suspend my campaign and return to Washington.”

More here. McCain full statement here.

First, I’ll note a a point from my blog post this morning on how the candidates, and their plans for dealing with the financial crisis, were being largely ignored as the business press focuses coverage on the parties who will actually craft a solution sometime this week. I noted that McCain, Obama and Joe Biden — all sitting U.S. Senators — weren’t likely to show up for a vote on the bailout this week, due to their campaign schedules and, of course, Friday’s scheduled debate.

This from the McCain campaign, of course, is might be a game changer.

Quick reaction from former Wonkette Ana Marie Cox, via Twitter, who says, “Suspending the campaign is classic McCain. It is also something he wouldn’t do if he were winning. Or at least he’d be stopped from doing it.”

(In case you were wondering.)

The Obama campaign, meanwhile, indicates it’s still inclined to debate. Politico notes that the two campaigns have been talking it over, working on a joint statement, since this morning. This statement, from the Obama campaign, notes who called whom:

“At 8:30 this morning, Senator Obama called Senator McCain to ask him if he would join in issuing a joint statement outlining their shared principles and conditions for the Treasury proposal and urging Congress and the White House to act in a bipartisan manner to pass such a proposal,” said Obama spokesman Bill Burton in an email sent just minutes after McCain’s statement. “At 2:30 this afternoon, Senator McCain returned Senator Obama’s call and agreed to join him in issuing such a statement. The two campaigns are currently working together on the details.”

And now the McCain campaign issues its account of those talks:

“Senator Obama phoned Senator McCain at 8:30 am this morning but did not reach him. The topic of Senator Obama’s call to Senator McCain was never discussed. “Senator McCain was meeting with economic advisers and talking to leaders in Congress throughout the day prior to calling Senator Obama. At 2:30 pm, Senator McCain phoned Senator Obama and expressed deep concern that the plan on the table would not pass as it currently stands. He asked Senator Obama to join him in returning to Washington to lead a bipartisan effort to solve this problem.”

UPDATE: Politico: Obama rebuffs proposal to go to Washington, skip debates:

“It’s my belief that this is exactly the time the American people need to hear from the person who in approximately 40 days will be responsible with dealing with this mess,” he told reporters in Florida, where he has been prepping for Friday’s event. “What I think is important is that we don’t suddenly infuse Capitol Hill with presidential politics,” he said.

He also took a real shot at McCain: “Presidents are going to have to deal with more than one thing at a time,” Obama said. ”It’s not necessary for us to think that we can do only one thing, and suspend everything else.”

I can hear it now: “Barack Obama would rather lose the economy and win the election.” Hopefully, that’s not where this is going. Noted: Obama says, “it may be necessary for both of us to be present to send a strong message that we need something to be done.”

The Latest

Politico Arena: Quick Reaction [Politico]

Ben Smith: Only thing that’s changed for McCain in 48 hours is the polling [Politico]

McCain to Washington to Address Bailout [ABC]

McCain’s political ads to come down [CNN broadcast]

McCain cancels Letterman; Only 4 House Republicans support bailout [Drudge]

Irrelevant no longer: They can get it done [Market Watch]

Obama’s case for debating [WSJ]

Surprise. Huffington Post blasts McCain [Huffington Post]

Reaction, comments from the Arkansas Times blog [Arkansas Times]

From Steve Harrelson [Under the Dome]

Candidates' Plans Take a Back Seat in Meltdown Coverage

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A side note to the financial meltdown, noted today in the New York Observer. The news coming out of Washington and Wall Street has blown election coverage off the map, at least temporarily:

During the week of Sept. 15-21, overall coverage of the economic crisis actually surpassed coverage of the presidential race across a broad swath of American media, according to a weekly tracking study by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. It was only the second time all year that something had displaced the election as the week’s top story (the Russia-Georgia conflict was the top story the week of August 11-17).

This, as both Barack Obama and John McCain have struggled to capitalize on the crisis, each using it to bolster their respective cases for change and issuing general ideas about how they would repair markets.

But in the end, financial and business reports haven’t really cared much about how McCain and Obama would address this crisis, since it’s not them who are going to fix it:

“I think both of these campaigns are beside themselves with how—behind the scenes—how unimportant they are,” said [Steve Liesman, a senior economics reporter for CNBC]. “I got an angry note from one of McCain’s people saying, ‘McCain came out with this plan on Friday to solve the problem. …’ Like, who cares? What I care about right now is what’s going on behind closed doors across town here at Capitol Hill.”

The story this week is Congress, Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke. Reporters only care about McCain and Obama insomuch as one of them, when president, will inherit a dicey economic situation — one likely neither of them had prepared for.

“How they can handle that—given that [the U.S. government] is now in the insurance, financial and housing business—is crucial,” [said Alexis Glick, the vice president of business news for the Fox Business Network and host of Money for Breakfast.] “If you’re not listening to what the next president of the United States thinks in terms of a plan or a strategy or who their economic brain trust is, you’re probably missing the boat here.”

Of course, the press might perk up if both candidates, along with Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden, actually interjected themselves into crafting a solution in their roles as U.S. Senators. As it stands, McCain and Obama are scheduled to be 1,000 miles away from the action on Friday, when the bailout plan is likely to come to a vote, preparing to debate in Oxford, Miss.

It appears unlikely either will cast a “yea” or “nay” on the bailout plan.

OMG! Nielsen Says 2.9 Million Got Obama's Text Message

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I missed a news release earlier this week from Nielsen Mobile, the mobile monitoring arm of The Nielsen Company (and sister firm to TV ratings service Nielsen Media Research), that said the Barack Obama presidential campaign sent 2.9 million text messages last week announcing Joe Biden as Obama’s running mate.

CNet News postulates, extrapolates a bit and reckons that if Obama’s carrier charges him 10 cents per message, that means the effort cost about $290,000.

Would this type of mass-texting effort bill that way? I ask because I honestly don’t know. But that seems like a sound estimate.

But there’s also the matter of whatever the campaign paid Distributive Networks, a small Washington D.C. mobile technology firm that handled the early morning text. Federal Election Commission records show Distributive has received about $130,000 from the Obama campaign, not including August, according to the Associated Press. All that comes to about $420,000 so far.

So was it worth it? Nielsen’s director of insights, Nic Covey, doesn’t talk dollars. But he’s certain the effort was good for the medium of text messaging and the campaign:

  • While much has been said of the timing and the scoop by news outlets, Obama’s VP text message still ranks as one of the most important text messages even sent and one of the most successful brand engagements using mobile media
  • The success of this text-campaign has Madison Avenue thinking even more about how they too can interact with a universe of 116 million text-message users in the US.
  • The value of the message goes far beyond the 26 words and 2.9 million recipients. Here, Obama branded himself as cutting edge, inflated the already enormous press attention paid to his VP pick and further established a list of supporters’ most coveted form of contact: their cell phone numbers.

Covey’s news release also called the message “by many accounts, the single largest mobile marketing event in the US., to date.”

The full news release is after the jump.

More

Pressing ‘send’ – About the 3 a.m. text message [Newsweek]

No data on how many were awake at the time [LA Times]

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Aaron Sadler Blogs the Democratic National Convention

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I’ve noted two bloggers who are covering the Democratic National Convention, but didn’t realize until today that my fellow ASU journalism department graduate Aaron Sadler, now covering national politics for the Stephens Media Group, is blogging his coverage of the big event in Denver.

You can check it out here. Among today’s posts: the Arkansas Delegation’s reaction to last night’s speech by Michelle Obama:

Arkansas delegates were still raving about Monday night’s Michelle Obama’s speech as the delegation gathered this morning.

Arkansans said Barack Obama’s wife effectively portrayed herself as a parent and wife who relates to hard-working American families.

“Michelle definitely eased my mind,” said delegate Thurman Metcalf of Rogers. “She made me feel like she was one of us, a normal person, by her showing the love of her parents and the love for her kids and her husband. It would have been like us sitting in her room talking to her like a family member. I love her.”

And speaking of Arkansans and politics, here’s a fun item I picked up from The Arkansas Project: It’s former Arkansas Young Republicans Chair Leslie Rutledge appearing on Fox News, talking about Barack Obama’s running mate choice, Joe Biden.

We roll tape after the jump.

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Mark Elrod at the Democratic National Convention: On Hillary, on Faith

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As noted a day or two ago, Harding University political science professor Mark Elrod is in Denver this week filing reports for ArkansasBusiness.com. You can read his first two posts here and here.

In his first post, Elrod talks about what Hillary Clinton and what she’ll need to do at this convention and beyond to rally the troups behind Barack Obama, and he leaves on a note about the future of the party:

In making that pitch to her supporters, the dilemma for Hillary Clinton is that she has to sincerely and convincingly rally her troops to get behind Obama. Anything less would be seen by the Democratic base as a sell-out designed to promote her own interests above of those of the party and will probably doom her chances of ever being elected president.

My guess is that Senator Clinton will make the speech and then hit the trail hard for Obama in swing states, particularly with white, working-class voters. It would be helpful to Obama for Bill Clinton to do the same thing but there’s no guarantee that will happen.

Most Democrats realize that there will inevitably come a time when Bill and Hillary Clinton won’t suck the air out of a room when they step into it and will cease to be the center of the Democratic Party universe.

That time certainly won’t come before Tuesday night, but it has to come before Wednesday morning if the Democrats hope to make victory in November a reality.

Elrod’s second post deals with how the Democrats are dealing with faith issues. Elrod attended the Sunday interfaith meeting in Denver, just before the convention official begins today.

Also: I talked with KTHV-TV, Channel 11′s Alyson Courtney early this morning about Obama and his new running mate, Joe Biden. You can see video of the segment here.

Much More

Blake Rutherford updates Day One of the convention here.

The Obama Campaign, Politics in the Mobile Space and Lessons to Learn

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Here’s a great story from the Associated Press today (via Wired) on the nuts and bolts of the Barack Obama campaign’s text message strategy, the first of its kind in politics. Regardless of your political persuasion, you’ve got to be fascinated by how the campaign has used new technology to cultivate its base, energize supporters, spread key messages and — most importantly — raise record dollars.

The article looks at Distributive Networks, a small Washington D.C. mobile technology firm that handled the early morning text message announcing Joe Biden as Obama’s running mate. The company wouldn’t say how many people signed up to receive the text message. But Distributive’s CEO, Kevin Bertram, said, “It’s a big number.”

The Obama campaign has worked closely with Bertram’s company, asking for added features in the text messaging campaign – like the ability to text supporters based on their ZIP code, a capability that allows for targeted voter-turnout campaigns.

Once the Obama campaign composed and sent the message, it was largely an automated process. The instant the campaign pushed the button, the message text flashed on Bertram’s laptop.

The CEO said he was “nervous, confident, relieved and sleepy all at once” as he watched the text message move through the system.

Despite a leak that popped the news about Biden before the campaign could, everything else about the move seems to be an unqualified success. The AP notes that overall traffic on Obama’s Web site hit an all-time high on Saturday, and 48,000 people watched streaming video of Obama and Biden’s first joint appearance. And, “by about mid-afternoon, more than $1.8 million had been contributed online.” And, as everyone has noted, Obama has compiled a prized database of names, e-mail addresses, mobile phone numbers and zip codes that he’ll not doubt use from now until Nov. 7 and beyond.

Clearly, the Obama campaign has turned grassroots political action on its head, improving vastly upon what the Howard Dean campaign did in 2004. Of course, social media and the mobile platform has changed dramatically since the last presidential election season. There’s more and better tools out there than four years ago.

But the ability to recognize those changes and quickly understand how to use them to not only raise money but engage voters in a movement has set the Obama campaign head and shoulders above what has come before.

Last week, I had lunch with Blake Rutherford, who was stoked about the fascinating case study all this will provide political campaigns and public relations professionals. The news media also have a lot to learn from Obama’s adventures in the online social spheres and the mobile platform. After all, the Obama campaign is doing nothing less than engaging a target market and spurring that market to action, which is ultimately the goal of publishers and broadcasters everywhere.

And some might say media is starting to learn those lessons. It wasn’t Obama’s message that reached my cell phone first. It was CNN’s.

More

Rolling Stone goes inside Obama’s campaign to examine the team and how it fashioned a modern, technologically savvy presidential campaign

The ‘Wag: Obama picks Biden, let’s CNN tell supporters

Barack Obama Picks Joe Biden As Running Mate

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Everyone get their text messages, e-mails and Twitter alerts? I got mine — at about 3:37 a.m. central time.

Probably not exactly the timing that the Barack Obama campaign was going for when it announced Delaware Sen. Joe Biden as Obama’s running mate. It was an unfortunate misstep after a week of masterful buildup and incredible information gathering by the campaign. Wouldn’t you love to know how many phone numbers, e-mail addresses and Twitter followers Obama added to his databases this week? What a resource.

But in the end, it was just too big a secret to keep. My Twitter feed shows CNN breaking the news about Biden about 4 hours before the Obama campaign sent its tweet officially announcing the choice. From the AP:

Obama’s decision leaked to the media several hours before his aides planned to send a text message announcing the running mate, negating a promise that people who turned over their phone numbers would be the first to know who Obama had chosen. The campaign scrambled to send the text message after the leak, sending phones buzzing at the inconvenient time of just after 3 a.m. on the East coast.

Even still, the Obama campaign continues to show a masterful command of the Internet and social media in a political campaign. Will this early morning bobble do anything to tarnish that reputation? In the long run, probably not.

Meanwhile, I’m going back to bed.

More

Steve Harrelson: Breaking: Obama puts Biden on ticket (at 12:47 a.m.)

Barack Obama’s million-dollar text message

Obama’s text stunt spoiled by the media

The text is in!

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