The singlemost thing that impressed me about last night’s Biden-Palin debate was how fast they both talked. Both of them, and especially the slow-talkin’ westerner, ripped through their answers. Counting Gwen Ifill‘s questions, there were 17,083 words spoken in last night’s 90 minute debate; there were 16,146 spoken in last week’s presidential debate. These kids were motoring! They must have collapsed once they got offstage. On stage, there’s not much to say beyond conventional wisdom. The folksy, winking Palin, after her bad week at the hands of Katie Couric and Tina Fey, looked fine–not the brilliant performer that Pat Buchanan saw, not even so much the winner that Lawrence Kudlow and Joe Scarborough and so many other saw. She looked really good compared to her interview persona; indeed, she looked like the woman who impressed people at the convention. How might things have looked for the McCain campaign if this debate had happened two or three weeks ago? This might have continued the momentum that she first established. But it didn’t, and so the event ends up being, in the words of MSNBC’s Mike Murphy, a nothingburger. (What she really looked like was an early frontrunner for the GOP nomination in 2012.) As it is, independent voters scored the debate heavily in favor of Biden (who did really well), insta-polls still showed him having the edge on the readiness question, the McCain campaign has pulled out of Michigan, Obama has moved 10 points ahead in Pennsylvania. McCain’s road to victory now lies on the narrow, twisty, seldom-traveled path through Miracleville.
