The VP Debate: Palin's Big Mistake (Eugene Robinson)

[babsbunny]

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2008/10/the_vp_debate_palins_big_mista.html

It's hard to look past the strangeness of tonight's vice presidential debate and assess it as if it had been a normal debate. But it's our job to try.

I thought Sarah Palin made one huge, central mistake -- and I expect it to be reflected in surveys asking voters who won (as it is already, indeed, reflected in a CBS snap poll of uncommitted voters indicating that they saw Joe Biden as the winner). Her error was that she hardly talked at all about policy solutions, except when the debate got onto the subject of energy and offshore drilling. There, she seemed on terra firma. But on everything else -- the financial crisis, the economy in general, health care, the war on terror -- she gave little more than promises of reform and "maverick"-y governance.

[Benhurst]

1. Palin's big mistake:

Showing up.