The entire transcript from the VP debate can be found here, but my favorite exchange is below. The difference between these two closing statements is striking, and telling.
IFILL: Gov. Palin, you get the chance to make the first closing statement.
PALIN: Well, again, Gwen, I do want to thank you and the commission. This is such an honor for me.
And I appreciate, too, Sen. Biden, getting to meet you, finally, also, and getting to debate with you. And I would like more opportunity for this.
I like being able to answer these tough questions without the filter, even, of the mainstream media kind of telling viewers what they’ve just heard. I’d rather be able to just speak to the American people like we just did.
And it’s so important that the American people know of the choices that they have on November 4th.
I want to assure you that John McCain and I, we’re going to fight for America. We’re going to fight for the middle-class, average, everyday American family like mine.
I’ve been there. I know what the hurts are. I know what the challenges are. And, thank God, I know what the joys are, too, of living in America. We are so blessed. And I’ve always been proud to be an American. And so has John McCain.
We have to fight for our freedoms, also, economic and our national security freedoms.
It was Ronald Reagan who said that freedom is always just one generation away from extinction. We don’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream; we have to fight for it and protect it, and then hand it to them so that they shall do the same, or we’re going to find ourselves spending our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children about a time in America, back in the day, when men and women were free.
We will fight for it, and there is only one man in this race who has really ever fought for you, and that’s Sen. John McCain.
IFILL: Thank you, Governor. Sen. Biden.
BIDEN: Gwen, thank you for doing this, and the commission, and Governor, it really was a pleasure getting to meet you.
Look, folks, this is the most important election you’ve ever voted in your entire life. No one can deny that the last eight years, we’ve been dug into a very deep hole here at home with regard to our economy, and abroad in terms of our credibility. And there’s a need for fundamental change in our economic philosophy, as well as our foreign policy.
And Barack Obama and I don’t measure progress toward that change based on whether or not we cut more regulations and how well CEOs are doing, or giving another $4 billion in tax breaks to the Exxon Mobils of the world.
We measure progress in America based on whether or not someone can pay their mortgage, whether or not they can send their kid to college, whether or not they’re able to, when they send their child, like we have abroad — or I’m about to, abroad — and John has as well, I might add — to fight, that they are the best equipped and they have everything they need. And when they come home, they’re guaranteed that they have the best health care and the best education possible.
You know, in the neighborhood I grew up in, it was all about dignity and respect. A neighborhood like most of you grew up in. And in that neighborhood, it was filled with women and men, mothers and fathers who taught their children if they believed in themselves, if they were honest, if they worked hard, if they loved their country, they could accomplish anything. We believed it, and we did.
That’s why Barack Obama and I are running, to re-establish that certitude in our neighborhoods.
Ladies and gentlemen, my dad used to have an expression. He’d say, “champ, when you get knocked down, get up.”
Well, it’s time for America to get up together. America’s ready, you’re ready, I’m ready, and Barack Obama is ready to be the next president of the United States of America.
May God bless all of you, and most of all, for both of us, selfishly, may God protect our troops.
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