I'm not electing a Vice-Debater

Tonight in the VP debates, Palin proved that she can be an excellent debater. She did a great job. I'll admit I was disappointed not to see a train wreck there. I nearly popped up a bowl of popcorn in anticipation of an evening of comedy. I didn't get that. Palin put on a respectable performance, and anyone just seeing how well she talked had to be impressed.

However, when I go to the polls in November, I won't be electing a Vice-Debater. I'm electing a Vice-President, and that's an area she fell far short. A good debater knows how to completely change the topic when it's something they don't have a good answer to, and that's what Palin did. However, the goal wasn't to see how well she could talk without getting tripped up. The point was (at least to me) to see how well specific questions could be answered (which she completely failed to do on MANY occasions). Otherwise, why even bother having questions? Why not just a 90 minute free for all chat?

The point was to flesh out each candidate and see what they are made of...see how they will hold up to a variety of measures of their job as vice president (and more importantly, their potential future job as the actual president). It's really no surprise that Biden crushed her on those grounds. Considering the backgrounds, I'd expect nothing less. But to tone this down to the least common denominator, as everyone seems to be doing, and see who won on that measure? Well, to me that reminds me of no-child-left-behind, commonly referred to as no-child-gets-ahead. By putting so much value on how Biden measured up (or rather, down) to Palin's level of ability completely disregards the fact that his abilities are so much greater.