Tonight, I said something to my debate students as I practice left to watch the Vice-Presidential debate: If you're good, I'll reward you by letting you watch a Biden debate; if you're bad, I'll punish you by making you watch a Palin debate. Boy, am I glad that I'll be able to walk into class next Tuesday knowing that my students watched an all around "good debate."
...Before I get into the heart of this diary, let me kind of give you a background about myself. I'm an attorney, and I have been a debator now for ten years through high school, college, law school, and now my chosen and beloved profession. I live for good, structured, stylized argumentation that isn't just rooted around "yeah-huh" and "nuh-uh," which is why I kind of tuned out of presidential/congressional politics after 2004 and focused more on written and spoken arguments in the court system (go figure). As a result, I've always loathed presidential debates because there's no real substance, just a lot of angry bickering back and forth.
Tonight, I have to admit that I was pleasantly suprised. No dobut, Biden proved to me why I supported him early on in this race; he knows his stuff, and he knows how to communicate it effectively, even though he might be over a lot of people's heads. But he argued the merits of this campaign, from Iraq, to Afghanistan, to the economy and the importance of the Supreme Court. He understood the issues and for the most part, answered the substantive questions posed by Ms. Ifil effectively and intelligently. His experience as a U.S. Senator and as an expert in foreign policy affairs for these many years came out in full force.
But more importantly, he knew his weaknesses and he knew how to use them as his strengths. When he started to catch himself going above people's heads and taking up too much time, he reeled himself back, and remember his audience: the undecided voter. He hammered issues that I don't even fully understand in a way that I felt that I could connect in a substantive manner. And as a debate coach trying to teach high school freshmen in Montana how think critically, he has certaintly provided a lot of material for me to work with. Bottom line, Biden spoke substance because his audience (including progressives like us who crave it and independents who are looking for guidance on a lot of these tough issues) wanted and needed it.
Palin, on the other hand, was debating for a completely different audience, the "mom judges" as I call them, who want style more than substance. Without a doubt, Palin did have some substance to her arguements, but that's not her strong point, and she knows it. She was talking to her base, and she knew it. In her mind, scoring substantive points wasn't the end-game; it was reinforcing her image in front of those who originally supported her. In other words, she only needed to look the part. In this dynamic, she clearly won.
In a substantive debate, like high school policy or Lincoln-Douglas, she clearly lost on the issues, but sometimes you have to know how to argue against these kinds of debaters, and more importantly, how to keep yourself competive against the touchy-feeling substance avoiders. You do this by reminding your audience of your own feeling, but without compromising the meat of your argument. Biden did that, and he showed it most clearly when he talked about his son about to be deployed in Iraq. More importantly, he did it without looking disingenuine; you could feel the looming sense of doom in his voice when he talked about it, and that scored a lot of points for the folksy people too.
In other words, this debate in the end, was not the huge dissapointment I originally set myself - and my students - up for. It was a powerful display of an exchange of ideas and a presentation of a particluar image. But in the debate I'm used to, substance must always trump style.