ST. LOUIS, Mo. – I walked in last night expecting a train wreck from our gal of the moment. Instead, I saw fireworks.
Sarah rules.
In her first, and last, vice-presidential debate, Sarah Palin was strong. Articulate. Folksy. And warm.
Joe Biden seemed afraid of hitting a girl.
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Sarah set the tone the moment she walked onstage here at Washington University and asked Biden, cheekily, “Can I call you Joe?”
She ran like a linebacker in lipstick with the first question. It was about the economy.
“Go to a kids’ soccer game on Saturday and ask . . . how are you feeling about the economy?’ You betcha you’re gonna hear some fear.”
The “you betchas” and “Joe Sixpacks” that crossed her lips, so hokey from just about anyone else, somehow worked.
More than that – they gave the public, ready to write Sarah off as a ditz, an opportunity to know a strong, sensible and smart woman. She stuck to her guns on tax cuts.
“Darn right we need tax relief for Americans! . . . You say paying higher taxes is patriotic,” said Sarah. To me, that said it all.
Sarah will be criticized for not answering questions, when both parties were guilty of this offense.
What she’s learned, in the days since the debacle of her “gotcha” interview with Katie Couric, is to stick to her principles.
She’s learned the debater’s trick of steering the conversation to her comfort zone. She learns fast.
In contrast, Biden jabbed and poked, and wound up agreeing with Palin.
It wasn’t a fair fight. He looked like an old guy not used to duking it out with dames.
They talked about drilling for American oil. “Drill, drill,” said Biden. Sarah was quick to correct him. Gently.
“The chant is, ‘Drill, baby, drill,” she said, expressing, with some expertise, the importance of American oil independence.
She was at her best when pointing out areas with which Sen. Biden had once disagreed with Sen. Obama – but now feels it’s necessary to eat his words.
“You had supported John McCain’s military strategy, not Barack Obama‘s,” she said. Gotcha!
Then came a dueling moment that made me wince with pity.
Sarah had just said that people relate to her for “being a mom” – a mom who’d sat at her kitchen table unsure how to pay the bills.
That’s when Biden, I feared, might crack up.
“I know what it’s like to be a single parent. When my wife died and my sons were gravely injured . . . I know what it’s like” – and here, Biden appeared almost to cry – “to have a child who I don’t know is going to make it.”
Intuition told Sarah not to go down this road. She would not compete. She ignored the remark.
The bottom line: It ain’t over yet. Not by a long shot.