Sarah Palin: Cardiac Paddles!!!!

Peggy Noonan in the WSJ:

She killed. She had him at “Nice to meet you. Hey, can I call you Joe?” She was the star. He was the second male lead, the good-natured best friend of the leading man. She was not petrified but peppy.

The whole debate was about Sarah Palin. She is not a person of thought but of action. Interviews are about thinking, about reflecting, marshaling data and integrating it into an answer. Debates are more active, more propelled—they are thrust and parry. They are for campaigners. She is a campaigner. Her syntax did not hold, but her magnetism did. At one point she literally winked at the nation.

As far as Mrs. Palin was concerned, Gwen Ifill was not there, and Joe Biden was not there. Sarah and the camera were there. This was classic “talk over the heads of the media straight to the people,” and it is a long time since I’ve seen it done so well, though so transparently. There were moments when she seemed to be doing an infomercial pitch for charm in politics. But it was an effective infomercial.

Joe Biden seems to have walked in thinking that she was an idiot and that he only had to patiently wait for this fact to reveal itself. This was a miscalculation. He showed great forbearance. Too much forbearance. She said of his intentions on Iraq, “Your plan is a white flag of surrender.” This deserved an indignant response, or at least a small bop on the head, from Mr. Biden, who has been for five years righter on Iraq than the Republican administration. He was instead mild.

The heart of her message was a complete populist pitch. “Joe Six-Pack” and “soccer moms” should unite to fight the tormentors who forced mortgages on us. She spoke of “Main Streeters like me.” A question is at what point shiny, happy populism becomes cheerful manipulation.

Sarah Palin saved John McCain again Thursday night. She is the political equivalent of cardiac paddles: Clear! Zap! We’ve got a beat! She will re-electrify the base. More than that, an hour and a half of talking to America will take her to a new level of stardom. Watch her crowds this weekend. She’s about to get jumpers, the old political name for people who are so excited to see you they start to jump.

Her triumph comes at an interesting time. The failure of the first bailout bill was an epic repudiation of the Washington leadership class by the American people. Two weeks ago the president of the United States, the speaker of the House, the secretary of the Treasury and the leadership of both parties in Congress came forward and announced that the economy was in crisis and a federal bill to solve it urgently needed. The powers were in agreement, the stars aligned, it was going to happen.

Biden Gaffe Watch: Not ALWAYS President of the Senate

From Ed at Hotair:

If anyone would have guessed before the debate which candidate would make an error on a Constitutional question, odds would have heavily favored Sarah Palin.  After all, Joe Biden has a license to practice law and has served in Congress more than half his life, while Palin has a degree in journalism and has never worked in Washington at all.  And yet, Biden blew the one question on the Constitution — on the topic of the job he seeks:

And the primary role of the vice president of the United States of America is to support the president of the United States of America, give that president his or her best judgment when sought, and as vice president, to preside over the Senate, only in a time when in fact there’s a tie vote. The Constitution is explicit.

BIDEN: Vice President Cheney has been the most dangerous vice president we’ve had probably in American history. The idea he doesn’t realize that Article I of the Constitution defines the role of the vice president of the United States, that’s the Executive Branch. He works in the Executive Branch. He should understand that. Everyone should understand that.

First, let’s deal with the hyperbole of the initial statement, because the rest of the gaffe flows from that point.  Democrats love to call Dick Cheney “the most dangerous vice president” in American history, but why is Cheney such a danger?  What has he done that makes him so dangerous?  Is he more dangerous than Aaron Burr, for instance, who killed Alexander Hamilton while in office and who later attempted a rebellion of sorts?  And if he’s so dangerous, what has Joe Biden done as a United States Senator to curb that danger?

Biden then goes on to get the Constitution completely incorrect.  In fact, the Constitution states that the Vice President is always the President of the Senate, in Article I, Section 3:

The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally divided.

In fact, as Cheney pointed out, the Vice President gets defined in the Constitution in both Article I and Article II, making the office part of both branches of the federal government.  Cheney’s argument that this gave him some sort of immunity from producing documents was absurd, but his reading of the Constitution was absolutely correct.  The VP belongs to both the executive and the legislative branches of government — and has almost no power in either, but still gets defined in the Constitution as a member of both branches.

Palin to Treat Biden Like a Moose

Allahpundit notes:

It restores the “pitbull in lipstick” image that the Couric interviews dissolved, it increases the chance of a golden Biden jackass moment by getting under his skin, and it keeps the spotlight off of her own answers. The debate’s supposed to be “about” Palin; to the extent she can make it about Biden or, better still, about Biden’s disagreements with Obama, it’s a victory even if she spends half her time tapdancing on policy.

Sarah Palin plans to go on the attack in tonight’s debate, hitting Joe Biden for what she will call his foreign policy blunders and penchant for adopting liberal positions on taxes and other issues, according to campaign officials involved in prepping her for tonight’s showdown…

“This is going to finally put her back into a position where we see her like we saw her the first couple weeks,” a McCain official said. “She was herself. She was authentic, and people related to that. … Tonight, she’ll get into a rhythm. You’re going to see her in a way that you haven’t seen her yet.”…

From her debate playbook, as described by McCain officials:

—Throw Biden’s own words back at him…

—Highlight past Biden foreign-policy positions as a way to undermine his core strength…

—Highlight places where Biden and Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) have differed, including primary-season statements about Obama’s readiness to lead and his positions on Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan.

Unleash the beast!

McCain Thinks Ifill is Unfit for Moderating

Mike Allen of Politico reports:

Hours ahead of the vice presidential debate, Sen John McCain (R-Ariz.) criticized the selection of PBS’s Gwen Ifill as moderator because she is writing a book called “The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama.”

“Frankly, I wish they had picked a moderator that isn’t writing a book favorable to Barack Obama — let’s face it,” McCain said on “Fox & Friends.” “But I have to have confidence that Gwen Ifill will handle this as the professional journalist that she is. …

“Life isn’t fair, as I mentioned earlier in the program.”

Ifill is moderator and managing editor of “Washington Week” and senior correspondent of “The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.” She is viewed as one of Washington’s fairest journalists.

Okay, so let the bets begin. Does the MSM play the race card and say that McCain wouldn’t complain if she was a pretty white woman or does the media go and paint McCain as a whiner using the “Life isn’t fair line”? Perhaps a combo of both