Who will do better in the VP debate tonight?
– Governor Sarah Palin
– Senator Joe Biden
– I vote Present
Click here to vote.
Will you watch it?
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
Biden vs Palin
About Author
Kramnik will win because I say so.
Who cares…the four candidates (for president and VP) are the worst choices voters in the US have had to make since the 2000 election.
The next 4 years are going to be very bad for the US economy, since these 4 politicians are totally clueless about anything….and worst of all….they only care about their party.
Despite the hostility and snobbery of the elite media, Palin is great. I think a lot of people will be surprised at how well she does.
By contrast, Biden is a joke. My favorite recent Bidenism is his apparent inability to understand what “literally” means (viz., “seems incredible but it’s really, truly true”). In his acceptance speech he had some classic gems:
1. By voting for Obama, we’ll give him the opportunity “literally to change the direction of the world.” So in addition to healing the planet and making the seas recede, Obama will perform the miracle of making the sun rise in the west and set in the east! Wonderful!
2. “Ladies and gentlemen, America gave Jill and me our chance. It gave Barack and Michelle their chance to stand on this stage today. It’s literally incredible.” It’s really, truly impossible to believe that Joe Biden and Barack Obama were nominated. I love it!
Biden has 36 years experience made bad decisions in the Senate. Let’s hope he doesn’t get more experience making bad decisions as VP.
Anon 10:50:00
To be an effective senator requires a completely different set of talents than being an effective President. Obama seems to have internalized some of the senatorial skills: jabbering and standing on the sidelines in an emergency to avoid political risks. At least McCain has demonstrated some executive instincts by always jumping into the fray when action is needed.
This is the first time in history that two senators have faced off in a Presidential election. And one of the VP candidates is also a senator. The only non-senator, Sarah Palin, is a great fighter with good instincts but is untested on the national stage.
Susan,
Why do you need to inject politics into your chess blog? You may live in Texas, but you have chess fans from both red and blue states. Why do you want to make us argue here on non-chess subjects?
– anon
What does living in Texas have anything to do with it? This is an important debate which I believe 70-80 million Americans will watch tonight. I also have tons of friends from other countries and they are also interested in this U.S. election.
I have no political affiliation and I am not endorsing any candidate. I have worked with Democrats, Republicans, and Independents to benefit chess and education. I would like to hear what these candidates have to say and I am interested in hearing other people’s views.
There are 15-20 posts each day on this blog. If people are not interested in a specific topic, skip it and go to the next. I do not see the problem.
I am interested in the issues of economy, national security, education, taxes, etc. in this election. There is no reason why chess players should be one dimensional.
Best wishes,
Susan Polgar
We really have 4 political parties: (1) Righteous Wingers, (2) Nelson Rockefeller Republicans, (3) Henry Jackson Democrats, and (4) The Left. Our 4 candidates are basically 1 of each.
IMHO, the main reason why things seem more partisan is that (1) and (4) dominate, respectively, radio and TV. The fundamental reason why things are more partisan is the greater disparity in income and wealth, as we sail past the point of 10% of the people holding 90% of the wealth. The greatest growth in the 90% is in the “money-on-money” sector, as opposed to money invested in goods, production, or non-financial services. This sector wants the people of (2) backed by the deregulating ideology of (1), and hence bankrolls the “values” pushes and “pitbull with lipstick” tactics that fire (1) up, at least come election time. You can see this dynamic in McCain’s campaign now, while the Clintons succeeded in making (3) a (second) base. The new book The Predator State seems to align with my views here.
More simply put, as with our major sports leagues, there is more money in this game now. I once saw an article on how Senators now need to spend a much higher % of their time on fund-raising than senators 50 years ago, just to stay afloat. The higher stakes means higher contention.
As for the debate, I’ve joked already here that Biden’s strategy has been to lower his expectation so much, even saying “George Washington freed the slaves to tear down the Berlin Wall” wouldn’t do any more damage. Palin will play up the “I’m just like you” side of her personal story and then morph into ptibull mode, while Biden will (or should) almost ignore her and go after Bush and McCain. I wonder if Biden will self-deprecatingly joke about his gaffe of saying “Stand up!” to someone in a wheelchair, since moderator Gwen Ifill broke her ankle two days ago! I agree with commenter 4 that Palin will hold her own, and though I feel the polarization he/she shows against the “elite media” is excessive, there’s a real effect here which I think the GOP strategists have successfully stoked—enough that I believe 5-6% of people in category (1) lie to pollsters who don’t identify as GOP or “Fox”, and hence McCain’s actual vote % will be (.06 x 1/4) = 1.5% higher than what fivethirtyeight.com will predict based on its weighted poll average just before the election. (This incorporates any “Bradley Effect”, and I say this even though Nate Silver already gives Fox/Rasmussen a high share of his weight.)
Thank you Susan! We love your blog!
Keep up the good work and keep delivering the medicine the chess world needs: a strong dose of reality.
Go GM Polgar!
Palin is incredibly stupid – I watched several of her interviews (not just excerpts) and was so embarassed by her responses and overall demeanor. Should anybody be undecided whether not vote for Obama or McCain – Palin is THE argument to vote for the former. Just terrible, sorry.
I’ll take stupid over evil any day of the week.
Unfortunately both are represented in the current administration.
I am writing in Alan Keyes for President.
kwreagan
Just curious about whom you would put into your four categories. My guess:
(1) Righteous Wingers [Palin]
(2) Nelson Rockefeller Republicans [Biden]
(3) Henry Jackson Democrats [McCain]
(4) The Left [Obama]
BTW: I don’t think the politics is much more contentious now than it has been, in, say, the 90s with Clinton impeachment, the 80s with Reagan, the 70s with Watergate and Vietnam, the 60s with, well, the 60s absurdities, etc., on back to outright war in the 1860s.
What has changed is that the elite media have removed their veil of objectivity and moved unabashedly into the Obama cheerleading section. Fifty years ago, the NY Times, CBS, NBC, etc. would have been embarrassed to be so blatantly on one side.
Also, 20 and 30 years ago, I was openly conservative and had open, fun conversations with many liberal friends. I think that was common. Now, though, liberals are so venomous and dripping with hatred for conservatives that conservative views are almost wholly silenced in many places (e.g., academia).
What does ‘I vote present’ mean? Tie? Neither?
“Present” means you’re too chicken to vote, you’re indecisive, you have no clue on how to vote, you’re clueless.
Thanks for reply. I have Biden and McCain switched, although on the specific international/defense category said to characterize “Scoop Jackson Democrats”, you’re right that McCain is closer than Biden’s “softpower” position.
Would you have said the same thing about bias in 1999? Were your discussions acrimonious then? I think much of what you decry has a single main cause: the Bushites’ actual track record. Give some examples of “bias”, and we’ll see if we can parse it into responsible reporting and not.
For one example I recall, an AP report on Palin’s linking Iraq to Al-Qaeda and 9/11 took away a sentence saying that the claim of an Iraq-9/11 link has been discredited. After (maybe not because of) conservative-blog objection to it, the AP story replaced it with a sentence about Al-Qaeda taking root in Iraq after the war started. I think the AP’s change was wrong—the context of Palin’s 9/12/08 remarks was clearly 9/11, so the change went out-of-context.
Biden is an idiot. He tells a cripple to stand up and thinks FDR was in office in 1929 and went on TV to talk to the nation. Obama, on the other hand, thinks the US embraces at least 57 states and talks of visiting a few more.
The Dem ticket is a couple of brain stems apparently.
Obama is correct! There are 57 states… 57 Muslim countries!
Look it up!
He is a liar and a cheat!
Nice to see a few rational, analytical discussions here instead of the all-too-typical rants that are long on emotion and short on thinking.
As for the person who complained about political posts on this blog, I would point out to them that this isn’t so much a blog about chess, but a blog for chess players and all things that interest us (which is almost everything).
I’m disappointed, but not surprised, to see one person here deride Palin as stupid. All too often, this has become the party line from the Left. Any conservative politician that they don’t like, they just attack them as stupid, despite any evidence to the contrary. Doesn’t matter if they’re highly educated, greatly accomplished, have a high IQ, or anything else… just repeat how stupid they are at every opportunity and hope the smear attaches itself to them. I guess this is easier than rational debate of issues & facts.
kwreagan,
Instead of parsing examples of media bias (I could fairly easily put together dozens of egregious examples), let’s just take one generalized example, viz., the treatment of Sarah Palin by the MSM has been atrocious. She has been relentlessly savaged, while Obama has received almost no critical scrutiny. To the contrary, the MSM is blatantly rooting for Obama. This isn’t just my opinion, it is shared by a plurality of Democrats. In a Rasmussen survey from July (http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_presidential_election/belief_growing_that_reporters_are_trying_to_help_obama_win) 27% of Democrats believe “most reporters are trying to help Obama” while only 21% think reporters are trying to help the Republican candidate. Among Republicans, 78% thought reporters are trying to help Obama and 10% see most offering unbiased coverage.
After the treatment that Sarah Palin has received, the perceptions of media bias have intensified. Rasmussen reports on 9/10 that 83% of Republicans believe that most reporters are trying to help Obama, and Democrats agree (but nearly to the same extent–19% say “trying to help Obama” while only 18% say “trying to help McCain”). Even Democrats are more likely to say the media is helping Obama than to say they are helping McCain!
By a 10-1 margin, voters think reporters are trying to HURT Sarah Palin (rather than “help”, 51% to 5%). Among Democrats, the ratio is 7:1 (28% “hurt”, 4% “help”). Among Republicans, 80% think the media are trying to hurt her.
Also, a solid majority (55%) of voters think that media bias is more of a threat than large campaign donations.
I strongly disagree with you about the media treatment of Sarah Palin.
First, think of all the flak Hillary Clinton has taken from all sides, for years. She can’t handle any of that? She’s running for our second national office and can’t do open press conferences?
Second, Obama got his scrutiny aplenty in 2007 and this spring. As Palin said last night, “how long have I been at this, like 5 weeks?” A compressed time when so many questions need to be asked.
Third and most important, she really has performed badly in interviews, enough that some people from your side actually called on her to quit. There were abundant signs of this from the beginning, and as regards qualifications, this is the major story to pursue. Not to do so is journalistically irresponsible. As was the media’s failure to look behind pre Iraq war claims now established as false and mendacious.
Borking the media has worked—and note my choice of verb (I winced when Biden mentioned that as a positive)—but it is excessive, and reprehensible divisiveness. Where McCain stepped over a clear line is that he also borked FactCheck.org. If you can’t give examples, then you can’t have the kind of academic discussion you mentioned.
Let me put my last sentence more collegially: Your comments don’t give your standards for “media bias” or “liberal venom”, and I don’t have enough information to tell your contentions apart from general partisan rhetoric heard often. Examples like the “Biden lies” in Susan’s more-recent debate thread I respect, and I rebutted them sans-venom. This level of detail is needed for an academic discussion—and actually my first post in this thread was continuing a private academic discussion with two senior colleagues at my university (a Dean and research lab head).
My standard for conservative venom is set not by Rush or Malkin or Coulter—who IMHO cancel wingers like Kos who really did savage Palin (though because a pertinent disclosure was not made promptly)—but rather by ThoseShirts.com. Their big ad appears on major mainstream Republican sites, and goes to a front page that for over a month has prominently featured a T-shirt saying, “I’d Rather Be WATERBOARDING.” Excuse me, what kind of mentality is this being marketed to?