Sarah Palin did better than we thought.  Of course we thought she might make a fool of herself as she did on CBS with Katie Couric.  Palin spoke in complete sentences and her thoughts were intelligible 95% of the time.  Is that what we’re looking for in a V.P.?  The ability to put two sentences together?

Biden was strong.  He was very strong on foreign policy though he didn’t do as well on economic issues as I would have liked.  Actually Obama was in the same boat last week.

But Biden, like Obama, seemed presidential and had a better understanding and vision for all of the issues.  Palin seemed to bring every question back to the next page on her paper.  Everything was came back to energy.  Check out the transcript of the live blog, it was pretty funny, especially when Palin used the word “tapped.” (a little after 9pm)

On Shawn P. Williams Now, Jazzy and I were joined by Renee Hartley in the first half of the show.  She is VP of the Young Democrats of America’s Dallas County Chapter.  Renee was just out of a YDA watch party that was attended by a number of spirited Obama supporters.  She did really well and talked about some of the ways YDA is adapting voter registration strategies of the campaign.

I’d like to thank the McCain/Palin campaign for providing C.J. Jordan as a guest for the second half hour.  C.J. is the National African-American Coalition coordinator for the McCain/Palin ticket.  There were obviously sharp differences between our positions and hers, but it was a spirited exchange.  Check the show out here.  We hope to bring you two great guests again next week.

By the way, Gwen Ifill did a great job as moderator.