Essential

Palin Wins Debate, Loses Election

Why competent just isn't good enough.

The pundit consensus on Sarah Palin: Not awful! The smartest piece on last night’s big debate comes from Politico. Palin, the authors note, exceeded the media’s gruesomely low expectations. And yet “it is hard to count any objective measures by which [Joe] Biden did not clearly win the encounter. She looked like she trying to get people to take her seriously. He looked like he was running for vice president.” Beyond Palin’s ability to recite talking points and stay on the offensive, the bigger problem is that McCain is hemorrhaging support in the polls. With a month till the election, there’s “little reason to suppose that not-that-bad is good enough.”