Grading the Palin-Biden vice presidential debate

U.S. vice-presidential hopefuls Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and Delaware Sen. Joseph Biden met Thursday for their only debate of the 2008 race. Who won the Palin-Biden debate? Did the candidates accomplish what their campaigns needed them to do?

Overall grades on the Palin-Biden debate itself

Sarah Palin B-minus

Joseph Biden B

I think it’s fair to say that Sarah Palin exceeded expectations by a long shot on Thursday. I wouldn’t say she aggressively attacked Joe Biden in the way that Politico reported she would, but she couched her early responses in emotional language that did a great job of reflecting the fears and frustrations that grip so many Americans now.

However, Palin seemed lost in parts of the latter half of the debate, which only strengthened my initial impressions about her. She did passably well on most of the policy questions — which, when combined with a strong performance in the first half of the debate, enabled her to come away with a B-minus. For someone who has had an awful two weeks in the media, including attacks from the right, this amounts to a very good grade.

Biden did well, too. His performance didn’t rate an “A,” but striving for that grade would have involved a significant risk of failure that just wouldn’t pencil out for a vice-presidential debate, particularly with Obama doing better than McCain in many polls.

Biden was brief — brief enough, anyway — and specific in his answers, and he treated Palin respectfully without appearing patronizing. He also scored some emotional points, showing that he can do as well in that regard as Palin can do on policy. However, sometimes he got too specific, and used jargon — not good for a TV audience of the general public. Overall, his grade reflects that he did the kind of job any experienced senator would do.

Grades on the success of the Palin-Biden debate in the broader context of the campaign

Sarah Palin B

Joseph Biden B-plus

Many people were expecting absurdity from Sarah Palin, but she didn’t give it to them. A really poor performance from the Republican vice-presidential nominee would have been a serious blow for John McCain, but Palin didn’t seem to do anything that would drive more voters away. On the other hand, she didn’t do any better than to allow the McCain campaign to hold its ground, and I don’t think she came across as someone who would make a credible president of the United States.

Joe Biden did a great job of hitting John McCain instead of Sarah Palin, particularly when he said that while McCain had been a maverick on some issues, they weren’t the “kitchen table” issues that touched the lives of most Americans. He also presented himself as a regular Joe done good — a guy whose son is going to Iraq and who knows just how lucky he is to have a good job and live in a nice house. But perhaps best for the Obama campaign, and in contrast to Palin, he showed that he could step in and be president of the United States if necessary.

Other views

As I did with the first McCain-Obama debate, I’ll turn to communications guru Bert Decker for a dissenting opinion. Decker believes Palin won the debate itself and helped the top of her ticket more than Biden did.

By the way, even though I disagree with parts of his analysis, Decker’s post on the debate is an example of what I consider a great blog entry. It comes from a source with expertise in the subject matter, it reads well, it provides unique opinion — and it’s brief enough to read quickly while providing enough information to make it worth passing on to other people.

Parting shots

CNN’s Approve-O-Meter looked better this time around. Trimming the graph to two lines (uncommitted male voters and uncommitted female voters) made it easier to read.  It looked like they zoomed in closer to the zero line, too, which helped — though the unfortunate side effect was that the approval lines sometimes reached the limits of the graph, which meant that it was impossible to tell just how big the approval ratings were.

Read a complete Palin-Biden vice-presidential debate transcript here.

Will telecommuting kill the office tower?

Could the high-rise office buildings that dominate the skylines of many cities around the world be replaced with mixed-use structures utilizing solar power and offering green spaces and high-speed wireless connections?

Office high-rises such as these in San Francisco could be on their way out, according to a new report from the U.K.

According to the United Kingdom’s Sky News, that’s the prediction of a recent report on the future of urban Britain. The report suggests that mobile technologies, coupled with a desire among more workers to work from home and gain some free time during the day — plus a willingness among employers to encourage them to do it — could change the face of cities.

According the report, 13 percent of Londoners already work away from the office two days a week and 44 percent said their employers have allowed them to work from home.

Microsoft researcher James McCarthy put it this way, according to Sky News: “The UK’s landscape is being significantly redrawn. … Old-fashioned spaces will be replaced with green WiFi spots, and new multipurpose spaces will be erected which will combine apartments, offices, shops and cafes, making our cities a much more inspiring landscape to work in.” (Punctuation corrected by PretePress)

Office Towerblocks Will Vanish From City Skylines As Home Working Takes Over, Researchers Predict | Business | Sky News

Photo by m.john16 / Michael Larson, reproduced under Creative Commons license Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 Generic.

Happy Park(ing) Day!

Today is Parkin(ing) Day, one of my favorite events to develop in recent years. The brainchild of San Francisco’s REBAR Group, Park(ing) Day started as one of their projects combining wierd street theater with a serious urban planning context. The group plunked some quarters into a San Francisco Parking meter, rolled out some sod in the street space they had just

People enjoy a temporary park set up in a parking space on a San Francisco Street in 2006 as part of the Park(ing) event created by REBAR Group.

rented, set up a bench and invited everyone to enjoy the park they had just created.

I don’t know if what they did was legal the first time, but I loved the presumption: “Look, I’ve just rented this spot on the street for an hour, right? Why do I have to only put a car on it? Why not a park — if I roll it up and take it with me when the time is up?”

From that single parking space on Mission Street (spitting distance from my old office at the San Francisco Examiner), the idea has grown to an annual event in many cities across the United States.

There are a number of interesting Park(ing) spaces to see in San Francisco, but I’ll put in my plug for the one at David Baker + Partners Architects, at the northwest corner of Second Street and Bryant Street. I don’t know what David has planned (and I’m on deadline today so I can’t go), but he does interesting work and he’s an interesting guy, so I’m sure it will be worth a visit.

Photo by Steve Rhodes under the Creative Commons license “Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic.”

More resources:

Find Park(ing) Day events near you!

REBAR Group

National Park(ing) Day at the Trust for Public Land

San Francisco lawyer, fundraiser Robert McCarthy dies

Robert J. McCarthy, a lawyer, lobbyist and political fundraiser who counted scores of San Francisco city leaders as his friends and clients, died of cancer Sunday at his home in the city’s St. Francis Wood neighborhood. He was 61.

– Heather Knight, San Francisco Chronicle

Back when first started covering the San Francisco Planning Commission (in the days when Frank Jordan was mayor of San Francisco) as a reporter, I noticed a big, well-dressed guy who seemed to make all the commissioners sit up and pay attention whenever he spoke. That was Bob McCarthy, and I came to see him around quite a lot at City Hall.

I guess Bob eventually noticed me, too, because on occasion he would pull me aside in the hallway and complain — gently — about something I had written. I know that later on, when I became neighborhood editor and then managing editor of the San Francisco Independent, he also noticed those rare occasions when one of  my reporters misunderstood a story or just wrote it in a way that required him to speak up in defense of one of his clients.

I’m not one to hang around politicians and lobbyists except as professionally required, and of course I frequently disagreed with Bob and was annoyed at the way he tried to spin the stories, but I always found Bob McCarthy to be an exceptionally effective advocate for his clients and an interesting guy. San Francisco will be a less interesting without him.

Robert McCarthy dies – S.F. lawyer, fundraiser.

Last chance to comment on GGNRA management plan

The Golden Gate National Recreation Area is revising its policies for managing the lands and facilities under its jurisdiction, but the period for public comment is drawing to a close.

This revision is important to anyone who uses the GGNRA in any way, as it is intended to guide the management of the park for many years. Friday, August 1 is the last day the GGNRA and the National Park Service will accept comments on the plan from the public.

Read the four alternative proposed management concepts, and make your comments before 11:59 p.m. Pacific time.

My understanding is that after the GGNRA selects a general set of guiding principles (the management concepts), it will undertake further study and gather additional public input to turn those principles into actual working regulations, policies and practices.

Bike lanes over S.F. Bay?

A key state agency will discuss a possible bicycle and pedestrian path over San Francisco Bay April 3, in spite of opposition from the California Department of Transportation.

The San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission, which oversees long-term uses of San Francisco Bay and regulates development in and around the bay, is scheduled to hear a report on the feasibility of constructing a path for pedestrians and bicyclists on the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge. Another agency that is responsible for setting tolls on Bay Area bridges has offered to help arrange financing and construct a movable barrier — but Caltrans already has voiced the opinion that such a trail would be a hazard to motorists and refuses to build it.

From the published meeting agenda:

“Briefing and Public Hearing on Bicycle and Pedestrian Access on the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge The Commission will receive a briefing on the issue of whether a roadway shoulder on the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge should be allowed to be used as a bicycle and pedestrian trail during non-peak commute hours or should be reserved for future use as a travel lane by motorized vehicles. Implementing either option will require a permit from BCDC. The Bay Area Toll Authority has determined that the bicycle and pedestrian option is feasible and has offered to help arrange financing the trail and installing a moveable barrier to protect the trail users. The California Department of Transportation has determined that the barrier would pose a safety hazard to motorists and has indicated that it will not construct the barrier and trail. The public will be given an opportunity to comment, and the Commission may provide policy guidance on the issue. (Brad McCrea) [415/352-3615 bradm@bcdc.ca.gov]“

The meeting of the BCDC is set for 1 p.m. April 3, on the second floor of the Ferry Building, at Market Street and the Embarcadero, in San Francisco.

The BCDC also is scheduled to discuss a proposed state law that would allow the BCDC to consider the impacts of climate change in making its planning decisions.

Resources:

The Bay Conservation and Development Commission

BCDC’s April 3 meeting agenda

The California Department of Transportation

The Marin County Bicycle Coalition

San Francisco’s secret public spaces revealed

San Francisco Chronicle urban-design writer John King has a great article in Sunday’s paper, examining the city’s privately owned public open spaces.

What is a “privately owned public open space”? It could be a rooftop terrace, a courtyard garden, a street-level plaza or a completely enclosed space several floors up in a downtown skyscraper. But in general terms, it’s a space to which the property owner is legally required to allow public access, even though it remains private property.

San Francisco has a number of such spaces in the central city, built and maintained by the owners of commercial properties in accordance with requirements in the Planning Code. Although a few of these spaces are popular and highly visible, many of them are so well hidden — and access to them so tightly controlled — that most San Franciscans will never know they are there.

King’s article includes a great map of privately owned public open spaces, and runs with a sidebar on the Sky Terrace open space at Westfield San Francisco Centre.

Do take the opportunity to visit some of these open-space oases and savor the change of pace from the hurried world outside. After all, you have the right.

Resources:

An event of the Young Urbanists group of the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association will focus on privately owned public open spaces. Details are not available yet, but it is scheduled for 6 p.m. on April 23.

SPUR’s monthly publication, the Urbanist, published an article on this type of open space as part of its excellent regular feature “Urban Field Notes.” Check out page 30 of the November 2007 issue, available in PDF form at this link.

San Francisco urbanist performance-art group REBAR conducted a survey of privately owned public open spaces and has helped organize a series of performances and other events.

To do: Tuesday, Nov. 27

The Northern California Megaregion

Some issues affecting the Bay Area not only exceed the capacity of municipal governments to handle, but go far beyond what we’ve traditionally conceived of as our nine-county region. But if the nine-county Bay Area isn’t always a relevant model anymore, what is our region? What kinds of structures do we need to plan for and govern this area? How do San Francisco and other central urban areas fit in? Where will the 10 million new residents anticipated by 2050 live? How does all of this affect our economy?

These are the issues the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association will address today in a lunchtime talk at SPUR’s offices near Union Square in San Francisco. SPUR Executive Director Gabriel Metcalf, one of the leading thinkers about the concept of emerging megaregions and the Northern California megaregion in particular, is scheduled to speak, along with SPUR Economic Policy Director Egon Terplan, who should provide some insight about the function of a megaregional economy.

More details about today’s event here.

Resources:

The November/December issue of the Urbanist, SPUR’s monthly publication, features an extensive article about the Northern California megaregion.

Maps from the Urbanist megaregion article.

To do: Wednesday, Oct. 24

High-speed rail recommendations: The Metropolitan Transportation Commission is scheduled to vote this morning on a committee recommendation for a dual-route high-speed rail system connecting the Bay Area and Southern California. The meeting starts at 10:05 a.m.
Metropolitan Transportation Commission, 101 Eighth St., Oakland, Calif., 510.817.5757.

Agenda (look for item 9a)

If you can’t make the meeting, listen to the live audiocast here on the MTC’s RealMedia stream — but note that the link will function only when the event starts, and meetings don’t always start on time.

A group of rail-transportation advocates and environmentalists plan to protest before the meeting, apparently because the MTC would include the Pacheco Pass alignment (roughly near Gilroy) as part of its recommendation.

Geek out with SFDOE: The San Francisco Department of Elections holds an open house today starting at 3:30 p.m. to explain how it will conduct the upcoming election. Room 48, in the basement of City Hall. If you go, skip the elevator and find the stairs. As you descend into the flourescent-lit, linoleum-paved underbelly of city government, note how rounded the white marble steps are, and imagine the number of footsteps of politicians, lobbyists, power brokers and bureaucrats it must have taken to wear them down so well.

Ballots and Brews: The San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association hosts a discussion of the measures on S.F.’s November ballot, starting at 5:30 p.m. SPUR’s web site lists staff members and SPUR committee members as the speakers, but I understand that one of the city’s better “quantitative market research” analysts and a sharp observer of local politics probably will be there, too. If you’re behind on your homework as a voter, this is a great way to relax with a beer after work and learn something at the same time. This is an event of SPUR’s “Young Urbanists” membership group, targeted at people younger than 40, but they don’t turn older people away.

Ballots and Brews, 312 Sutter St., Fifth Floor.

Party with Bush: While it’s perhaps not as interesting as a Camp David kegger with Dubya, there is indeed a party with a Bush in San Francisco tonight. It’s the Pacific Research Institute’s annual fund-raising dinner, and the president’s brother, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, is among the expected guests at the libertarian-minded think tank’s gala, which starts at 6 p.m.

PRI Annual Gala Dinner, Ritz-Carlton Hotel, 600 Stockton St., San Francisco.

Barry Bonds speaks: Barry Bonds in conversation with Ray Taliaferro of KGO radio at 7 p.m. at Hotel Nikko. An event of the Commonwealth Club.

Western SoMA plan: The Western SoMA Citizens Planning Task Force discusses the development of a Western SoMA  Community Plan — a document to guide the future zoning and physical development of San Francisco’s western South of Market Area. The meeting is at 7 p.m. at Bessie Carmichael Elementary School, 375 Seventh St., San Francisco.

Wanted: ’spectacular delusional hubris’

“It’s spectacular delusional hubris to think that good sense will prevail.”

That’s Chico, Calif. developer Jon John Anderson, explaining that while he understands the problems that California’s love affair with destructive sprawl creates, he doesn’t think the state is prepared to straighten up and build right.

Anderson, quoted by John King in the Oct. 9 San Francisco Chronicle, continued, “People feel entitled to their fantasy.”

Anderson’s bleak assessment of California’s future came as part of the 2007 conference of the American Planning Association’s California chapter, in a debate over whether California is “ready for complex urban development.”