My daughter had soccer practice from 6:15 to 7:15, so I couldn’t watch most of tonight’s Veep debate, but I did manage to listen to most of it on the radio.  I’m not sure how much the lack of visuals influenced my impressions, but I thought I’d offer a brief analysis nonetheless.

I’ll start with obvious: Sarah Palin didn’t fall flat on her face.  She stayed composed, she sounded confident (even when her clear lack of knowledge on an issue suggested she shouldn’t be), and she kept her energy up throughout the evening.

That said, she wasn’t very good.  If the kind of performance she gave at the convention was the kind of performance she gave tonight, McCain would have enjoyed zero bounce in the days that followed.  Her answers were erratic, wandering, mostly content free, and often had nothing to do with the questions asked… and to my ear, her performance grew steadily weaker over time.  (I don’t know if that’s because she actually got worse, or because she just plain wore on me.)  I’m sure a lot of folks on my side are probably disappointed that Palin wasn’t as embarrassing as she was in the Katie Couric interviews, but towards the end of the debate, I’m not so sure she wasn’t.  That sort of monumental ineptitude is hard to sustain over a full 90 minutes, but I bet you could find a handful of 30-second clips, particularly near the end, that could stand alone as the Palin we’ve all come to know and mock over the past couple weeks.

We all knew from her convention speech that Palin could act, but the big question tonight was whether she could do improv?  Um… not really.

Biden on the other hand did just fine, and actually grew stronger as the evening wore on.  I wish he hadn’t laughed out loud at her insults—that came off as a little creepy—but I noticed no major gaffes, and he certainly appeared in command of the issues.  He also seemed to focus mostly on McCain, not Palin, which in the end is a winning strategy.

So who won?  On points, clearly Biden, a take that appears to be supported by the instant polls.  But in the end, I don’t think it matters anymore.  The Palin surge has long since faded, and I’m not sure there was anything Palin could have done tonight to put the bloom back on the rose.  McCain appears to be losing the battle for the swing voters, and while Palin may not have done him much harm tonight, I don’t think she did him much good either.

One final comment.  There was much debate both within and without the netroots over the proper response to Palin’s nomination, and there were many who strongly warned against attacking her personally, for fear of creating a backlash.  But for those of us who persisted in relentlessly savaging both her qualifications and her character, well, I think tonight we enjoyed the fruits of our labor.  For Palin, tonight’s debate was all about personal redemption, an effort to reclaim some of those post-convention highs, and reassure voters that she is prepared to stand a 72-year-old heartbeat away from the Oval Office.  She did okay in that regard, but I’m not sure she succeeded.

Meanwhile, while Palin was essentially defending herself, Biden was busy attacking McCain, which is, after all, the role of the Veep nominee in a presidential campaign.  Perhaps Palin helped herself a little tonight, but she failed to take even a sliver out of Barack Obama’s hide, and in that sense failed utterly in her primary role.

At least, that was my take from listening to the debate on the radio.  I suppose the tracking polls over the next few days will prove whether my impression was right or wrong.

He lost Ohio in 1864.

6:11 PM: The Montlake Alehouse is packed with debate gawkers. I cannot connect to the wireless right now so I’m using my cell phone as a modem. Slow, slow, slow.

6:13 PM: Sarah Palin unleashes her first lie about Obama raising taxes!

6:16 PM: Has anybody figured out yet whether Sarah’s lip coloring is a tattoo? Hey…I’m not knocking it. Decorative scarification is cool…in some parts of the world.

6:23 PM: When Sarah Palin says she had to “take on those oil companies in Alaska”…does she mean that in the Biblical sense?

6:26 PM: Joe Biden agrees with Sarah’s windfall profit tax (and he points out that McCain would never go for such nonsense). Now, I suppose, the “hard left” will be slamming Biden for saying he “agrees with Sarah” too often.

6:31 PM: I think she just said, “How are we going to get there to positively affect the impacts.” But maybe she was just speaking in tongues or something.

6:33 PM: I’m watching this on CNN and they have some sort of attitudimeter on uncommitted Ohio voters, broken down by sex. (Although I though Ohioans were mostly broken down by drinking….) Anyway, women go positive when Joe starts talking, and then after a brief lag, men tag along with the women. When Sarah starts talking, women go negative and men go positive. Then the moderator interrupts. I think there is going to be an epidemic of blue-balls in Ohio tonight.

6:49 PM: I think Sarah just gave a treatise on “Diplomacy” citing her one-hour Evelyn Wood course by Henry Kissinger.

6:51 PM: Biden just mentioned McCain’s gaffe on Spanish radio, where he suggested he would not sit down with the leadership of Spain. And Sarah didn’t utter “Horseshit! Horseshit!” Man…Sarah is disappointing me here.

7:16 PM: On VP authority: Sarah says she agrees with VP Cheney. Biden says Cheney has been the most dangerous VP ever. Certainly this is true with respect to his hunting buddies!

7:28 PM: Sarah will change the tone in Washington “as [she] did in Alaska” by “appointing people regardless of party.” But, how many high-school friends does she have????

7:somethingortheother: Sarah parrots McCain in jabbing at the media (at least as I experienced it through the filter of CNN). While that kind of thing may work well for rousing the base, it seems like a really, really stupid strategy in every other way.

Post Debate: I was hoping Sarah would get asked to name the media she consumes. I’m thinking she reads both the Alaska Free Press and the Free Alaska Press.

7:45: The television screen says that CNN is going to report on the focus group reactions and result of a national debate poll soon. But they have turned down the volume and the Montlake Alehouse has erupted into a sea of boisterous conversations. So, I’ll just have to wing it and give my opinion without help from a focus group and a poll.

Basically, Biden did exactly what he needed to do. He attacked McCain without attacking Palin. He looked at her, he showed her respect, he displayed confidence and sincerity. He committed no blunders that I noticed. He was composed.

Palin? She did pretty well given her “relative youth and inexperience.” There were a few awkward moments (as one would expect for a novice). As I watched the debate, two “issues” with Palin kept gnawing at me. First, she smiled way too much and at inappropriate times. That shit doesn’t even cut it on the high school debate team (yep…I was there). It made me feel like she didn’t really understand the gravity of the moment and the position for which she has been selected.

Secondly, her answers frequently seemed canned. She had carefully prepared talking points ready to go, and she had them down pat—even when they didn’t quite fit the questions being asked. Sure…Biden was guilty of the same thing at times. But on a scale of genuineness from 1 to 10, Biden scored an 8 and Palen, a 4. But I’m a dirty fucking hippie, so what do I know.

Join me tonight for a special Thursday night edition of Drinking Liberally. We’ll all be keepin’ a sharp eye out for run-on sentences from Sen. Joe Biden and, um…any evidence at all of cognative function from Gov. Sarah Palin.

The debate begins at 6PM. Folks will start gathering around 5:30PM at our usual haunts, the Montlake Ale House,  2307 24th Ave E., in Seattle’s Montlake neighborhood.

Hope you can stop by.

I guess I should just let them break the news in their own words:

The Spokesman-Review will cut about one-fourth of its editorial staff this month, laying off as many as 27 employees in a move its publisher says is a reaction to economic conditions of the newspaper industry.

Steven A. Smith, who has been the newspaper’s editor for more than six years, is resigning as part of the reductions, which he called devastating to the news operation. The newsroom cuts will affect writers, editors, photographers and support staff.

Companywide, about 60 workers will be cut.

I’ve only been to Spokane a few times, but I have a special fondness for the Spokesman-Review.  It was with the S-R’s Olympia correspondent Rich Roesler with whom I had my first political interview, and… well… you always remember your first time.  It was Rich who first broke the story of my “Horse’s Ass” initiative, setting me on my accidental path toward political activism, and he’s always remained accessible ever since.

I was relieved to read on Rich’s blog that his name was not on that list of 27 newsroom staffers to get the axe, and that at least for now, his job appears safe.  You know, for a reporter.  I’d say he’s one of the best political reporters in the state, but given the circumstances I’m afraid that might come off as faint praise, considering he’s fast becoming one of the only political reporters in the state.

Meanwhile, I keep hearing rumors from Thurston County that the Olympian is considering some sort of merger with the Tacoma News Tribune, or perhaps ceasing operations entirely… though multiple contacts at the paper deny the rumor is anything more than that.  Still, with what we’ve been seeing elsewhere in the industry, anything is possible.

Tuesday morning came and the world had survived the bail-out bust. So Goldy and friends turn to who really won the debate. Was it the cool and presidential guy or was it the snarling Pekingese guy averting his eyes? Next the panel turns to Dino Rossi, the BIAW and the new Buildergate scandal. The former Washington state Secretary of Transportation comments on Rossi’s Fantasy Transportation Plan™, the gubernatorial race, and the new Traffic Congestion Initiative (a.k.a. Lyin’ Eyman’s Initiative 985). All this and more….

Goldy was joined by Seattle P-I columnist Joel Connelly, former Washington State Secretary of Transportation and anti-I-985 activist, Douglas McDonald, initiative specialist Laura McClintock of McClintock Consulting, and HorsesAss and EFFin’ Unsound’s Carl Ballard .

The show is 55:34, and is available here as an MP3:

[audio:http://www.podcastingliberally.com/podcasts/podcasting_liberally_sep_30_2008.mp3]

[Recorded live at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. Special thanks to Confab creators Gavin and Richard for hosting the Podcasting Liberally site.]

This commentary at McClatchy by Prof. Michael D. MacDonald of Williams College sums up rather neatly how Neoliberalism went essentially unchallenged for nearly three decades and proclaims it to be now dead.

The bipartisan Neoliberal Era in America, from 1981 until last week, was devoted to economic growth, finance capital and the creative use of debt. The gray, dreary, and boring politics of economics was enlivened by a circus of sex scandals and culture wars.

I’m not so sure Neoliberalism is fully dead, as the Wall Street and D.C. vampires popping up on CNBC are starting to exhibit remarkably zombie-like behavior, but it’s certainly on life support. The U.S. House will take a vote on it tomorrow, to what ultimate effect we know not.

How quickly we forget that much of our history has involved mighty struggles between ordinary people and those with too much power. If we are indeed entering a new epoch, it is one fraught with the perils of authoritarianism, racial and other types of hatred, and outright quackery. The Great Depression analogies have been flowing fast and furious lately, so it’s worth a moment to contemplate that people like Father Charles Coughlin had huge followings in the 1930’s.

It’s a good thing our AM airwaves today aren’t filled with the demagogic ramblings of charlatans, racists and buffoons or I’d be really worried for the Republic.

Huh.  Is this what the Republicans mean when they talk about strong leadership?

The Seattle Times has a front page article on Darcy Burner and her ties to “liberal bloggers” like me, and while I have no argument with the piece itself, I wish reporter Emily Heffter had managed to get a hold of me.  (We played telephone tag last week, but never connected.)

One of the main points I would have emphasized to Hefter is that this popular notion that the netroots represent some sort of radical-left fringe, is nothing more than a Republican meme that has been eagerly embraced by old media stalwarts who understandably fear the very real threat we bloggers pose to the media and political establishment.

Sure, there’s a fringe element to the netroots, but then everything (except perhaps, a black hole) includes a fringe, and as inclusive as we try to be there are often times when pragmatists like me roll our eyes or pull out our hair at the counterproductive and shortsighted antics of our own wacky left.  (And yes, personally, I am nothing if not a political pragmatist, a self-described “1970’s centrist” who, while occasionally radical in my methods and my writing style, is far from revolutionary when it comes to policy.)  Reichert would point toward Darcy’s mere attendance at Netroots Nation as evidence that she’ll do our “bidding” instead of that of 8th CD voters, but in embracing this classic Rovian divide and conquer strategy, who exactly is Reichert branding as “the other”?  As I reported from Austin back in July, we’re not exactly the “dirty fucking hippies” we’ve been made out to be:

I had planned to get to bed relatively early last night, but somehow found myself at 1:30 AM, sitting in an IHOP with Darcy Burner and a bunch of veterans. Vote Vets co-founder and chairman Jon Soltz sat across the table, passionately detailing the Veteran Administration’s many bureaucratic nightmares as he relentlessly made his way through an enormous, whipped cream topped stack of chocolate chip pancakes. On his own unexpected politicization Soltz described heading to Iraq a true believer, only to have reality—political, military and otherwise—rip the veil from his eyes. “It was like learning that your parents are not really your parents,” Soltz explained as he tried to relate the sense of betrayal that accompanied his own disillusionment.

Perhaps the biggest surprise for those who don’t know squat about the liberal blogosphere might be that while 20-year-old slackers in bathrobes are in short supply here at Netroots Nation, veterans and military personnel are out in full force. At last night’s keynote, Gen. Wes Clark called out various groups one by one to stand up and be acknowledged… teachers, medical professionals, candidates, first responders, social workers, etc…. but by far the largest group in attendance were the veterans, and it was for them that the crowd reserved its loudest and longest round of applause.

It is an inside netroots joke that we sometimes refer to ourselves as “dirty fucking hippies,” the inherent punchline being that this description couldn’t be further from the truth. If we are radicals, we are the radicalized middle, a segment of the population historically loathe to forsake economic security for the sake of a mere cause, yet somehow provoked into producing a populist uprising. That veterans like Soltz and Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas Zuniga provide two of our most outspoken voices should come as no surprise from a broad movement that draws support from nearly every corner of American life.

For those who hope or imagine that Darcy’s close connections with the netroots will ultimately prove to hurt her standing with her district’s suburban voters, well, you should have been at IHOP last night, where Darcy was literally embraced by veterans who trust that she will deliver the kind of leadership, respect and support that they deserve. Yet more evidence that we are in fact a netroots nation.

I’ve watched Darcy hugged by bleary-eyed veterans at 2AM, not because they believe she will do their “bidding,” but because they know that as a congresswoman she will always be there to listen to their concerns, and then do the right thing.  If that’s the sort of embrace that’s supposed to alienate Darcy from 8th CD voters, then I guess our critics are right, and “liberal” bloggers like me really don’t know the district.

Dow down 230 points at the moment.  Go figure.

My crystal ball is at the pawn shop, but I bet the Dow goes up eleventy billion points in one minute tomorrow morning. That will prove that “ANY PLAN OH MY GOD JUST PASS SOMETHING” is worth it because the very serious bidness people are in a very fragile state right now. They’re perfectly willing to make sure you suffer as well if they don’t get what they want.

There were lots of practical ways to ensure liquidity, but the Emotional Rescue Way was to lard things up with pork and pretend it will all work. It might work, but it might not, and the only thing standing between this lipstick pig and passage is the People’s House of Deputies.

Awesome.

“My calls are still running 10 to 1 against the bailout, which sounds like a lot and is a lot,” said Representative Jason Altmire, Democrat of Pennsylvania, who voted no on Monday. “But before the vote, it was 30 to 1. After the vote, especially that afternoon as the market fell, our calls were about 50-50.”

Good to know CNBC has such um, leverage. You really don’t want delegates Congress-critters listening to their citizens, that’s dangerous and, at least in my lifetime, simply not something that is done.

Conventional notions of party affiliation and outdated “left versus right” archetypes are vaporizing before our eyes. You’re either with the people or you’re with the kleptocracy, it’s that simple.

Meanwhile, in an alternate universe, MILFs.

Rock on, America!

It’s not particularly what I want to do during dinner, but I just turned on the gubernatorial debate on Channel 9.  It was tough choice, between that, and Two and a Half Men.  Ugh.

Anyway, I don’t really expect to do much live-blogging as, well, I’m eating.  But we’ll see.

UPDATE (7:04):
Ryan Blethen needs a shave.  Or perhaps to fully grow out that beard.  I’m not sure.

UPDATE (7:05):
Dino Rossi is a liar and an asshole.  I’m just sayin’.  (I mean, really.  Did you hear that opening statement?  What a prick.)

UPDATE (7:12):
Would you have voted for the House bailout.  Gregoire said she didn’t know about that one, but she would have voted for senate bill.  Rossi wouldn’t answer at all, and went straight back on the attack.

UPDATE (7:18):
Is this effective?  I mean, every single one of Rossi’s answers is an attack on Gregoire.  All of them.

UPDATE (7:31):
Clearly, Dino Rossi is going for the angry voter vote.  I dunno, maybe that’s a good strategy.  But he comes off as, well, angry.

UPDATE (7:34):
Two and a Half Men is really looking appealing right about now.

UPDATE (7:35):
There’s a question on water rights.  Let’s see how Rossi turns this into an attack on Gregoire….

UPDATE (7:38):
Yup.. the water issue is about “changing the culture in Olympia,” and replacing folks there with “reasonable, responsible people”… you know, unlike that goddamn unreasonable, irresponsible Gregoire.

UPDATE (7:40):
Question on gang violence in Eastern Washington… Rossi attacks Gregoire for releasing sex offenders and violent criminals, blaming her for the death of three police officers.  You know, because she’s a bad person.  Gregoire answers the question by talking about anti-gang legislation, and focusing on education.

UPDATE (7:46):
Buildergate question!  Rossi… allegations were false, but if they were true, there’s nothing wrong with what, you know, I didn’t do.  Rossi switches the conversation to talk about voter fraud.  Gregoire turns the conversation to the BIAW… Rossi voted 99%… then to her “one Washington” speech.

UPDATE (7:48):
Rossi’s fans in the audience are as angry and rude as he is, trying to shout down the governor.

UPDATE (7:49):
Did I mention that Rossi is a liar and an asshole?  Dems were trying to disenfranchise military voters by trying to get him to cop to being a Republican?  What bullshit.

UPDATE (7:52):
Now he’s lying about the Spokane compact, and accusing Gregoire of “laundering” money.  And this to a question about whether driver licenses should be limited to US citizens.  (And by the way, to my friends in the media, Rossi’s ability to lie about the Spokane compact is all your fault.  You got it wrong.  I told you.  And you’ve refused to correct it.)

UPDATE (7:53):
It’s almost over, thank God.

UPDATE (7:56):
Oh god I feel sorry for the governor to have to stand on stage with that prick.  I mean really.

UPDATE (7:59):
This was the first gubernatorial debate I watched live, at one sitting.  I feel dirty.  I need a beer and a shower.  Maybe sandblasting.

FINAL THOUGHTS:
You know, the media old timers seemed to think that Rossi won the first two debates, but if so, and he was anywhere near the asshole in those debates as he was in this one, then I just have to assume our media is filled with assholes too.  What else could explain it?

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve got nothing against assholes, if they’re on my side.  But I’m not normal.  I’m not the typical voter.  And I just have trouble believing that most voters want an asshole as governor.

It wasn’t a great debate, but Gregoire at least made an effort to answer some of the questions when she didn’t get distracted by refuting Rossi’s slander.  Meanwhile, Rossi just concentrated on being a dick.  “Culture of Olympia” my ass.

And people tell me he’s likable.  If Rossi’s likable, I’m the most popular kid in school.  I just don’t get it.

The TNT reports that Sen. Patty Murray will vote yes on the the bailout package coming before the US Senate tonight, while I believe Sen. Maria Cantwell just spoke on the floor indicating that she would vote no.  I’ve emailed Sen. Cantwell’s office asking for confirmation and comment.

UPDATE:
As expected, the bailout passed the Senate by a wide margin, 74-25.  Murray voted yes, Cantwell no.