Who Won the first Vice Presidential Debate?

In your opinion, who won the presidential debate, Joe Biden or Sarah Palin?

Biden clearly won on the questions, or any traditional measures for scoring debates (and, the polls so far suggest that most Americans agree that he won). Palin scored a victory for her ticket by not being the complete disaster that people feared she might be in the debate after her terrible recent interview appearances. And, she was very perky and folksy, which some will love, but that I found quite annoying.

(BTW, lots of other responses to this question in the Prequel to the Vice Presidential Debate..." topic...)

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I concur 100%; no need to go any further, you hit it exactly.

I was a little disappointed in the sense of someone who goes to see an auto race for the crashes...I didn't get to see one and it would have been fun.

The consensus in my office today is the same and that (and this is a bunch of generally moderate business/financial types) Palin did well but is not anywhere near qualified for the job of VP. One guy compared it to having an inexperienced broker call in to discuss an advanced financial planning concept with one of our senior people. The broker might know the buzz words, but the senior person here KNOWS the technique. There's a difference.

Sarah Palin is clearly MUCH more attractive than Joe Biden.

I know I'm not supposed to care, but I do!!

"Drill, baby, drill"....

Well, that's a FIRST !!!

A eHa moderator who has an OPINION about something other then dating !!!

HELLO Jeanish !!! Welcome to the boards!!!

Nobody won. How does someone "win" a "debate" that was so carefully scripted and choreographed? It was really more of a beauty contest than anything else.

I agree with all of the above, and I like the "broker" analogy. It's like Harold Ford said on TV this morning; he knows enough about college football that he thinks he could do 5 minutes on SportsCenter, but he knows that no one would hire him as a coach. You saw the former sportscaster go up against an experienced coach last night at the debate.

Joe Biden told 14 lies

1. TAX VOTE: Biden said McCain voted “the exact same way” as Obama to increase taxes on Americans earning just $42,000, but McCain DID NOT VOTE THAT WAY.

2. AHMEDINIJAD MEETING: Joe Biden lied when he said that Barack Obama never said that he would sit down unconditionally with Mahmoud Ahmedinijad of Iran. Barack Obama did say specifically, and Joe Biden attacked him for it.

3. OFFSHORE OIL DRILLING: Biden said, “Drill we must.” But Biden has opposed offshore drilling and even compared offshore drilling to “raping” the Outer Continental Shelf.”

4. TROOP FUNDING: Joe Biden lied when he indicated that John McCain and Barack Obama voted the same way against funding the troops in the field. John McCain opposed a bill that included a timeline, that the President of the United States had already said he would veto regardless of it’s passage.

5. OPPOSING CLEAN COAL: Biden says he’s always been for clean coal, but he just told a voter that he is against clean coal and any new coal plants in America and has a record of voting against clean coal and coal in the U.S. Senate.

6. ALERNATIVE ENERGY VOTES: According to FactCheck.org, Biden is exaggerating and overstating John McCain’s record voting for alternative energy when he says he voted against it 23 times.

7. HEALTH INSURANCE: Biden falsely said McCain will raise taxes on people's health insurance coverage -- they get a tax credit to offset any tax hike. Independent fact checkers have confirmed this attack is false

8. OIL TAXES: Biden falsely said Palin supported a windfall profits tax in Alaska -- she reformed the state tax and revenue system, it's not a windfall profits tax.

9. AFGHANISTAN / GEN. MCKIERNAN COMMENTS: Biden said that top military commander in Iraq said the principles of the surge could not be applied to Afghanistan, but the commander of NATO's International Security Assistance Force Gen. David D. McKiernan said that there were principles of the surge strategy, including working with tribes, that could be applied in Afghanistan.

10. REGULATION: Biden falsely said McCain weakened regulation -- he actually called for more regulation on Fannie and Freddie.

11. IRAQ: When Joe Biden lied when he said that John McCain was “dead wrong on Iraq”, because Joe Biden shared the same vote to authorize the war and differed on the surge strategy where they John McCain has been proven right.

12. TAX INCREASES: Biden said Americans earning less than $250,000 wouldn’t see higher taxes, but the Obama-Biden tax plan would raise taxes on individuals making $200,000 or more.

13. BAILOUT: Biden said the economic rescue legislation matches the four principles that Obama laid out, but in reality it doesn’t meet two of the four principles that Obama outlined on Sept. 19, which were that it include an emergency economic stimulus package, and that it be part of “part of a globally coordinated effort with our partners in the G-20.”

14. REAGAN TAX RATES: Biden is wrong in saying that under Obama, Americans won't pay any more in taxes then they did under Reagan.

Maybe this is what the Dems like to call "substance," as in substantive lies.

Well done. Now, how many lies did Palin tell?

Palin's not very good at lying. The bridge to nowhere quip is already gone. She has no answer when challenged on her lies. Every politician lies, there's no mystery there. I am amused by her condescension because it has no legs. She's got no national record and her experience is narrow in scope.

What scares me about her is her similarity to GW Bush. They both are ideologues of limited intelligence. That is a very dangerous combination. Made worse is that it is religious ideals. Palin clearly doesn't have much depth of thought. I would much rather have someone in charge that is plagued with doubt than someone with utter belief in their rightness.

I would fear for the world's safety if she were to become President. She simply does not have the knowledge or reasoning capacity to manage global politics. I'd probably move to Kiribati if she became President, as it is unlikely to get nuked in WWIII

Can you say nuke-cue-lar? Somebody did last night, several times.

Oh, puleeeeeeeze. Leaving aside the issue that many of those "points" are unsubstantiated or rely on very politically slanted interpretations of evidence, it also ignores that they both made misstatements (I don't assume that either of them "lied" when they were inaccurate).

For a non-partisan analysis of the points made during the debate, go to FactCheck, which is a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center. You can also find a good political fact checker on the Washington Post site (go to the "Politics" section, then click on "columns and blogs" and then on "The Fact Checker" if you don't see it). There are probably others as well.

This is not a good time to rely on the political spin machines for accurate information... lol.

What bothered me a lot...and apparently CNN's test audience because the graph went way down whenever she did it...was when she would avoid answering a question by going completely off topic. A good example was when they were each asked about their "Achille's heel" or when she shifted from talking about greenhouse gas issues to drilling for oil. She was very personable, I thought, but highly scripted.

And I did catch a couple of "nukulars" in there.

You know the other thing that really got me was when I saw how much of a lightweight she was in that session...but despite that she was MUCH better and smarter appearing that George W. Bush. Really, it is striking if you think about it.

Yes and it wasnt Joe Biden....

Bush loves to say that non-word too....

When will they learn how to say a simple word properly?

The other thing that some may or may not realise, is that Palin is a lot more smarter and manipulative than people realise, especially in terms of her ambitions, which someone rightly said, are aimed very very high. She uses her charm to get the audience disarm them, to make them think she is soft and squishy, to make them like her and she comea across as personable and likeable... but does she know what she is talking about? It doesnt appear that way - especially when she is compared to Biden who is a lot more articulate, stays on the point that is raised and his experience just comes through, as does his intelligence.

Not to say Biden is not a good politician - I mean his ending comments -- were a savvy political thing to say. He totally trumped Palin with that.

When she got into her scripted words, it was sooo obvious to me, because she would stare down into the camera and just repeat the same rhetoric that she and McCain have been saying all along!!