VP Debate

The VP debate is tonight. Again I'd suggest coming out to the Circle Cinema, rather than rail at your own TV at home.

If you've seen Palin's recent interviews, I wouldn't expect this to go just like those. The debate format isn't an interview, where reporters can follow up (non)answers. It turns out that the one thing in the world Ms. Palin actually has a good amount of experience at is political debating. There's a good article up by one of her former opponents describing her performace. She's probably done it way more than Biden. She got her job as Alaska governor on the strength of her debate performances.

If Biden if known for anything, its for putting his foot in his mouth. To top it off, I can guarantee you that the Reps already have the details worked out on the "Biden disrespected poor Sarah" campaign, and are just waiting to pull the trigger.

Its also true that win, loose, or draw, it probably isn't going to matter all that much. If it did, our VP in 1988 would have been Lloyd Bentsen. The fact is people don't vote for VP, they vote for president. So look for both candidates to be attacking the other ticket's headliner, and mostly ignoring the person across from them.

Fired Up
Here's where I'd like to post a video of Biden to get you fired up and ready to go for the debate. But since this isn't Oklahoma for Biden, I'm instead going to post this amazing clip I came across of a speech Obama gave the day after the last debate. I does have Biden in it a bit.

This speech, on its own, would easily be one of the three best I've heard Obama give. However, it started to rain a few minutes in, and thus events conspired to give us something more.

I remember hearing a interview a few years back with a guy who grew up in the Bronx. When he was a kid he took piano lessons, and was fairly good. He said that once he found himself in the house of a friend of his mom's, and was told to go play with her son William, who was "the same age as you and plays piano like you". So he goes in with this kid where the piano was, and sits down to try to play, only to find that a lot of the keys were broken. He gives up in disgust, and asks the kid how he can possibly play with this thing. The other boy tells him, "Oh, it's no big deal. I just play around the broken keys". William then sits down and proceeds to do just that. That's when this guy realises he's in the presence of someone who's not meerly good, but a genius. William grew up to be known as "Billy Joel".

That's the story that came to my mind as I watched this video. Obama starts by shrugging the rain off as unimportant, much like you'd see in a professional football player. Then he starts to use it. By the end, its as integral a part of his speech as if he'd called it up himself for the occasion. I've never seen anything like this.

Anyway, set yourself aside 26 minutes and watch this.



...and Ready to Go
If you're not fired up and ready to go after watching that, you must be one of those dead Chicago democratic voters the Reps keep telling me about. So I know you are now anxious to come help us this weekend register voters at Osage Hills. Call Mary Jo at 269-4400 or email Greg.