by George Harris
Kansas City Star
Readers Advisory Panel 2008

update October 3 5:15 pm

Two additional polls to report:

Survey USA Biden 51% Palin 32%
Undecided 17%

MediaCurves.com tracked independent voters, showing them breaking to Biden 67% to Palin 33%.

Original report:
Random and non-random polls for the vice presidential debate declare Biden the winner over Palin in the vice-presidential debate.

Non-random (unscientific) polls on AOL and MSNBC web sites show Biden winning 48 to 45 and 78.6 to 18.9 respectively.

Randomly selected subjects on three other polls also show Biden winning:

CNN/Opinion Research Biden 51 Palin 36
CBS Biden 46 Palin 21
Fox Biden 61 Palin 39

In the CBS poll, of the uncommitted voters, 18% now say they will vote Obama/Biden, 10% now say McCain/Palin.

Post-debate reaction seemed to agree that Governor Palin gave a good account of herself in being able to deliver prepared answers, though often not responsive to the question at hand.

Biden was able to draw on extensive experience from his long experience as a Senator.

I was surprised that Palin's charm did not work better than the poll results showed. But she likely was weighed down by Saturday Night Live parodies and interviews earlier in the week with CBS's Couric. By the time of the debate, people knew that she is not ready for the presidency and saw through her efforts to appear that she was with canned responses.

The issue from the Thursday night debate ultimately is not about Palin but about McCain's judgment in selecting someone with so little qualification for national office.

The McCain/Palin ticket will likely drop into attack gear for the remainder of the campaign in a last ditch effort to stop Obama and Biden. I think it's likely to become really ugly but hope that McCain chooses instead to recover some of his dignity as Palin did in a good effort Thursday night.