Rav Casley Gera

Biden wasn’t as loveable as Palin, but he didn’t need to be; Palin wasn’t as competent as Biden, but she didn’t have to be.

"Hey, can I call ya Joe?"

Who won Thursday’s vice-presidential debate? It depends on who you ask. The initial poll, from CNN’s panel of undecided Ohio voters, saw the Democrat Sen. Joe Biden rated as the winner 51-36. But conservatives have been crowing all weekend about the performance of Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska. “She was polished, direct, folksy and on message,” said one Republican strategist. Right-wing blogger Michelle Malkin put it more succinctly with a post titled simply, “Sarah Rocks!”

“I would like to see all the Sarah doubters and detractors in the Beltway/Manhattan corridor eat their words,” Malkin wrote. “Sarah Palin is the real deal. Five weeks on the campaign trail, thrust onto the national stage, she rocked tonight’s debate.”

Certainly, Palin’s confidence took the audience by surprise. The internet messaging service Twitter offers a live stream of users’ election-related updates. Before the debate, it was, well, a-twitter with messages gleefully anticipating the meltdown of Palin in the face of Joe Biden’s experience and grasp of the issues. As the debate wore on, they grew increasingly quiet, to be replaced by crowing republicans exulting at Palin’s performance.

So who won? Perhaps the real question is: what does it mean to ‘win’ an electoral debate? After all, these events are hardly like a traditional debate on a single topic, where the aim is simply to win a majority of the audience over to your side of the argument. An electoral debate such as this is an opportunity for both candidates to show their grace under pressure, their ability as a debater, and their grasp of the facts and issues. It is, presumably, intended to provide a glimpse of how they would deal with things in office.

By this standard, the imaginary trophy clearly goes to Joe Biden. On most issues - from the war on terror to the economy - his answers, though hardly stunningly detailed, demonstrated far greater hold on the facts than Sarah Palin’s. Indeed, Palin had one fairly serious factual gaffe - referring to the US general in Afghanistan, General David McKiernan, as “General McLellan”. Biden responded directly both to moderator Gwen Ifill’s questions and to Palin’s challenges, while Palin avoided certain questions entirely, telling Ifill at one point, “I may not answer the question the way you want to hear, but I’ll talk straight to the American people and let them know my track record.”

So why are so many convinced that Palin, to use a common American metaphor, “hit it out of the park”? Partly, it’s because of the expectations game. After her disastrous interview with Katie Couric, anything better than blithering incoherence from Palin was bound to be seen as a stunning comeback. Or, as Queen Latifah told the audience in her impersonation of Ifill on this weekend’s Saturday Night Live, “due to the historically low expectations of Governor Palin, if she were to do a merely adequate job tonight - at no point cry, faint, run out of the building or vomit - you should consider the debate a tie.”

But it’s also because the aforementioned standard - the debate winner is the candidate who seems most prepared and on top of the issues - isn’t the standard by which debate winners are judged.

Elections, after all, are not fundamentally meritocratic. They’re not supposed to be won necessarily by the most competent, most experienced, most accomplished or most wise candidate. They’re not even always won by the candidate proposing the best answers to a society’s problems. The only guaranteed standard is that the winner will be the one the greatest number of people wants in the job - notwithstanding, of course, quirks of the electoral system that occasionally award victory to the candidate with fewer votes. For debates, too, the “winning” candidate is really the one who makes the most favourable impression on the public.

In my day job, I work as a legal journalist. I speak frequently to businessmen who tell me what they look for in their lawyers - what qualities convince them to spend hundreds of pounds per hour on one over another. Interestingly, they never tell me they chose a particular lawyer for their technical skill or grasp of the law. Not that it isn’t important. It’s just that, at the top level, that kind of knowledge is seen as a given: to be expected and, for a client, hard to assess. To choose between highly competent egg-heads, clients look for more intangible qualities. 24-hour availability. Keen commercial instincts. And, often decisively, a friendly, open demeanour. Given the choice between the world expert in a particular area of law, and a business-savvy, approachable advisor who merely knows it very well indeed, most will go for the latter.

Modern presidential politics is similar. Amidst all the claims and counter-claims, policy spats and questionable facts, the public doesn’t feel it can judge which candidate is most intelligent or most on top of their brief. There is a certain minimum standard for intelligence and aptitude that candidates have to meet - albeit a very low one - but once that standard is met, personalities become as important to many voters as their grasp on the issues or their brainpower. This has been true for a long time. In 1960, Richard Nixon famously bested John F. Kennedy in their debate in the minds of radio listeners, but Kennedy’s looks saw him score higher amongst TV viewers. In recent years, however, the importance of personal characteristics to political success has become more and more overt. Al Gore thought he was pummelling George W. Bush in the first 2000 debate as he offered slick answers and scoffed at Bush’s stumbling. But voters thought him arrogant and rude, and Bush saw the benefits.

Initial reviews of last week’s presidential debate handed it to McCain. But the polls quickly showed that it was Sen. Barack Obama, the Democrat, who benefited most from the occasion, which gave the still quite unknown - if extremely famous - young senator the opportunity to appear presidential under pressure before a mass audience. Republican John McCain was deemed to have turned voters off with his body language and demeanour towards Obama, particularly his lack of eye contact with his opponent, which many considered condescending. On Thursday, Biden held off from strongly attacking Palin to avoid the condescension trap. But he still seemed somewhat distant and offhand, while Palin, like Obama the week before, addressed both her opponent and the camera head-on.

More than any other candidate for national office in memory - with the possible exception of 1968 Nixon running mate Spiro Agnew - Palin has put personality front-and-centre of her campaign. Her much-vaunted convention speech was almost entirely autobiographical, and carefully calculated to appeal reinforce Palin’s credentials, not so much as a potential president, but as the representative in Washington of the American people. For all Obama’s talk of “the audacity of hope,” it’s Palin’s campaign that is truly audacious. She seeks to take the very thing which many feel makes her inappropriate for the vice-presidency - her everyday ordinariness - and make it her biggest strength.

The two candidates in Thursday’s debate, therefore, were aiming to do entirely different things. For Palin, it was essential to pass a certain minimum standard for competence and grasp of the issues; but once that was achieved, she could focus on reinforcing her populist appeal as a person. She met the first task, just about, by breathlessly reciting the talking points she had been cramming all week. She performed extremely well at the second, with a perky confidence that was remarkable, and a succession of folksy gimmicks - the wink, her remark “say it ain’t so, Joe” - that, while incensing traditionalists and some feminists, left her conservative base giddy with excitement. One conservative blogger said that Palin’s performance “sent little starbursts through the screen and ricocheting around the living rooms of America.”

For Biden, the goal was the reverse: to win a traditional debate victory, demonstrating his superior experience, knowledge and thoughtfulness, while passing a minimum standard of likeability by not appearing to bully or mock Palin. It’s a goal he clearly met. Biden wasn’t as loveable as Palin, but he didn’t need to be; Palin wasn’t as competent as Biden, but she didn’t have to be. Biden won the debate on the traditional measures of calm under pressure and grasp of the issues; Palin, supposedly at least, won on the modern measure of “connecting with the voters”.

I say “supposedly” because at this stage, it’s not clear how Palin’s folksy schtick really affected voters. And Biden had his own personality-led moment, towards the end of the debate, when he got choked up discussing the death of his wife and son. The results of CNN’s instant polling suggest this may have resonated with voters more than Palin’s winking.

In the end, there’s only one standard that really measures the winner of a debate - and that’s its effect on the polls. The initial signs are that, in the wake of the debate, Obama’s lead over John McCain continues to widen. That may have little to do with Thursday’s debate. But it’s worth remembering that, for vice-presidential candidates, the most important thing they can actually do for their campaign is to sell their running mate and score points on the other side’s presidential candidate. Biden’s refusal to directly attack Palin, while helping him avoid making her a figure of sympathy, also gave him plenty of time to pummel John McCain - singing his praises as a person, but slamming his positions and delivering a detailed critique of his claims to maverick status. He treated Palin like what, in the end, she is - a distraction from the question of who should be the next President. Though we’ll never know for sure the effect the debate has had on the polls, that strikes me as a victory Biden can be satisfied with.

Newsweek offers an editorial this week that addresses the issue of Palin’s qualifications in more detail and, frankly, with more coherence. Liberal hate-figure Karl Rove also offers a rebuttal.