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whadu · Level 47: Snake Eater **Posts:** 31396 **Timestamp:** Fri Oct 03, 08 11:00 AM

startribune: NEW YORK - Even before she reached the podium, the first words out of Sarah Palin's mouth set the tone for her debate night: "Hey, can I call ya Joe?"

It was an unabashedly, one might even say relentlessly folksy and down-home Palin that greeted Americans Thursday night, with phrases like "Doggone it," "You guys," "Darn right" and, one she must have been saving 'til the end, "Say it ain't so, Joe!" You became "ya," change was "comin'" and a class of third-graders even got a "shout-out" from the Alaska governor.

And whether viewers loved or hated it — a result likely to split down party lines — it was clear this was a much more comfortable candidate than the one who faced CBS News' Katie Couric in those painful interviews.

She even said as much in her closing statement: "I like being able to answer these tough questions without the filter ... of the mainstream media kinda telling viewers what they just heard," she said. "I'd rather just be able to speak to the American people." And so she did.

But if Palin made ground in repairing her shaky image, Sen. Joe Biden was just as effective in reining in his tendency to occasionally appear overexcited or, as moderator Gwen Ifill put it, undisciplined. He was generally focused and forceful, and seemed to take painstaking care not to appear disrespectful in the least.

And so he'd merely smile broadly when she'd issue a zinger — and if he wanted to challenge her facts, he was likely to use Ifill as a buffer — as in "Facts matter, Gwen," when he really meant "Facts matter, Sarah."

For those who were paying attention to the facts, it was hard not to notice that Palin was often speaking in generalities and less comfortable than Biden on a number of questions — on a question about Israel and the Middle East, for example, she seemed to be reading a laundry list of talking points off a card.

Source: startribune
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