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Heather Gehlert:
Early on in Thursday's debate, moderator Gwen Ifill asked vice presidential candidates Joe Biden and Sarah Palin a question about bipartisanship: "Would you work to shrink this gap of polarization which has sprung up in Washington?" In response, Joe Biden painted McCain as a flip-flopper, and Sarah Palin attacked Obama. To which Ifill replied, "Neither of you really answered that."
Gotcha.
Or did she? Many politicians have mastered the art of dodging questions. What struck me about this debate was that Sarah Palin has mastered the art of something else: making you forget the question.
A lot of Democrats wanted her to do badly tonight. And based on Palin's recent interview blunders, including her now widely circulated walk-and-talk Q&A with Katie Couric, a lot of reporters predicted she would. Now every one of them is eating their words.
I wish I had listened to the debate on the radio instead of watching it on TV because I would probably be writing a very different commentary right now. That's because neither candidate had any major gaffes. There were no memorably embarrassing statements. In fact, we didn't even learn very much tonight about Joe Biden and Sarah Palin because they both spent so much time attacking their opponent's running mate. When the candidates were on point, we either got information we already knew (the Bush administration has run this country into the ground; Obama and Biden want a timeline for withdrawal from Iraq, while McCain and Palin don't), or we learned about Biden and Palin's similarities: Both fancy themselves on the side of middle-class Americans, both oppose redefining marriage; both have sons in or on their way to war; both were hard-pressed to say what they would give up in light of the $700 billion bailout.
This debate wasn't lost or won based on anything verbal. It was won on nonverbal communication. And the winner was Sarah Palin.
The first thing Palin did upon entering the stage was blow a kiss to the audience, then greet Biden, saying, "Nice to meetcha. Hey, can I call ya Joe?" She was colloquial. She was charming. She took control, and except for a brief moment when a teary-eyed Biden recalled his wife's death and the experience of being a single parent, she never lost it. When Biden sighed, Palin smiled. He jutted his jaw forward in frustration; she smirked. He furrowed his brow; she winked.
And when Palin did speak, even if you disagreed with her words, based on the way she talked, you could feel that she meant them.
To be fair, Biden did a commendable job. He deserves credit for criticizing McCain's health care plan, which would leave the average family $7,000 short each year from being able to purchase coverage on the open market. He deserves credit for pointing out, in response to a question on climate change, that America has just 3 percent of the world's oil reserves but consumes a quarter of the world's oil. He deserves credit for correcting the record numerous times with regard to Iraq and questioning why we're pouring millions of taxpayer dollars each month into a country that's sitting on a huge budget surplus.
Of course, if debates were won on smarts alone, John Kerry would be our sitting president.
Trust and credibility are two crucial, and often overlooked, components of a debate. That happens when you show your audience you understand them and leave them feeling good and confident in your ability to solve their problems. That's arguably easier for candidates to achieve through behavior and body language than word choice. One UCLA study estimates that up to 93 percent of communication's effectiveness is determined through nonverbal cues. Others place the number closer to 95 percent. If that holds true, it's hard to overstate the importance of Sarah Palin looking into the camera and at the audience, instead of looking away or at Ifill, as Biden did.
In a way, people buy politicians the same way they buy brands. Do you purchase Crest or Colgate or Tom's of Maine because you know exactly which ingredients (zinc citrate trihydrate, hydrated silica) do what (fight tartar, whiten enamel)? Or do you pluck the tube from the shelf because you trust it will do the job? Granted, toothpaste can't wink, but actors in their advertisements can.
So before you put too much stock in pundits' post-debate analyses, which usually include the dissecting and fact-checking of words, think for a minute about the times you've gained someone's trust. Was it because of something you said? Or because of how you said it?
Don Hazen
I watched the debate at the posh Greenwich Hotel in Tribeca, N.Y., in a room filled with progressives and strong Obama supporters. Many attending essentially agreed with the conventional wisdom and the pundits: While Biden won because of superior knowledge and communication skills, Palin did better than many expected. Thus Biden didn't come away with as clear a victory as he might have, had she stumbled. But Biden was the victor nevertheless. Veteran political writer and pundit Joe Conason explained: "Biden did away with the elitist myth, talking about his roots in Scranton. And he actually knew something. She knew nothing. Independent voters actually want people to have some knowledge."
But there was a separate, contrary undercurrent in the room and in follow-up interviews. It was a disquiet, which I shared with half a dozen people I spoke with. Call us the working class sympathizers. Maybe because of our roots, or work as artists, we are more tuned in to the reality where form can often take precedence over substance.
See more stories tagged with: debate, election 2008, joe biden, sarah palin
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