You strike me as being seriously invested. But can you be honest? Can you really, sincerely say that you want Palin to be a President of the USA? An honest admission would mean acknowledging your ticket is fatally flawed, so I can imagine that you could never admit to yourself let alone to us here on Salon that you're not a Palin fan. I'm not sure why I bother asking you to be honest, except that your defenses of Palin strike me as being so obviously weak (to yourself and to others). You say you're impressed that she spent an hour with Kissinger when she only "had" to spend a half hour? In all seriousness, if that impressed you, don't you wonder why didn't she spend a few hours reading his (or Carter's or any other foreign affairs thinker's) books as part of the process of deciding she is VP of the USA material? Why have you set your bar so low?

I liked those post convention speech invitations to post our reactions!

I thought Obama did not get a good start, and came on much stronger near the end (not the very end). He seemed jittery and too wound up at the beginning.

But McCain seemed old and unprepared to me at the beginning--actually, he never seemed to pull out of that impression for me.

I wish Obama would use more specific nouns instead of vague pronouns, and I wish he weren't relying so heavily on telegraphing information--or assuming that his audience (especially his TV audience) knows the full context of his claims.

Dear Joe,

I never knew how much I was going to love you. I am so surprised by how much I like and admire you as a candidate since Obama chose you for his ticket!

Here's my advice for your upcoming debate: 1) Allow that Palin will win the debate on the grounds that everyone has low expectations for her intelligence and many happen to like how spunky she is. 2) Make the point explicitly during the debate that even if viewers leave the night feeling connected to Palin--cheering her on somehow--they need ultimately to take very seriously the consideration that she very likely WOULD be the next president if her ticket is elected. If Palin shucks aside her responsibility to be smart enough to engage the questions on an intellectual level (e.g., by pivoting to a talking point), you can, in your own very endearing, self-deprecating way, immediately call her on it by asking the audience directly if they wouldn't rather have someone who deeply cares about the law and the world than someone who doesn't? Do we --the audience-- really want a president who hasn't demonstrated she cares enough about the job to have read extensively and made knowledge about world affairs part of her preparation for the job?

You'll be doing us all a favor if you can win the confidence vote, even if you can't win the personality vote. (Not that you don't have a terrific personality in my book.)

Dear Joe,

I never knew how much I was going to love you. I am so surprised by how much I like and admire you as a candidate since Obama chose you for his ticket!

Here's my advice for your upcoming debate: 1) Allow that Palin will win the debate on the grounds that everyone has low expectations for her intelligence and many happen to like how spunky she is. 2) Make the point explicitly during the debate that even if viewers leave the night feeling connected to Palin--cheering her on somehow--they need ultimately to take very seriously the consideration that she very likely WOULD be the next president if her ticket is elected. If Palin shucks aside her responsibility to be smart enough to engage the questions on an intellectual level (e.g., by pivoting to a talking point), you can, in your own very endearing, self-deprecating way, immediately call her on it by asking the audience directly if they wouldn't rather have someone who deeply cares about the law and the world than someone who doesn't? Do we --the audience-- really want a president who hasn't demonstrated she cares enough about the job to have read extensively and made knowledge about world affairs part of her preparation for the job?

You'll be doing us all a favor if you can win the confidence vote, even if you can't win the personality vote. (Not that you don't have a terrific personality in my book.)

Sorry, My humble " Advice for Joe" was intended for posting in the previous blog!

Isn't there evidence that Joe Biden actually IS connecting a lot more to voters than Palin is? Why all this neurotic energy except to spook the Dems?

From what I can make out, all the insta-polls are showing that the public feels that Biden was the clear winner. There's no way the Republican pundits are going to be able to spin tonight's debate as a Palin win to the whole country. (Check out DailyKos updates.)

I thought Biden was great from start to finish (well, actually, I relaxed and knew he was on a roll once he started looking in the camera). I noticed the anger that Joan noticed, but it didn't scare me at all--he was still connecting even when he was angry--making eye contact all the way around.

My read is that because Palin was doing okay--I think she pulled a somewhat respectable performance together for herself-- he ended up being able to respond/react to her statements like she was pitching softballs to him. He hit those responses out of the park. I loved it when he used up some of her time to respond powerfully to what she had just said.

He was TERRIFIC.