There was a moment in the Biden-Palin debate when Joe Biden recalled the death of his wife and his injured sons; he had a sudden depth of emotion and the pain of an awful memory. He said he knows what people who are suffering feel: they need help. Palin immediately went back to talking points, calling McCain a 'maverick.' As if the parroting of that word somehow was a winner or something to deflect anything real in the debate. She had the chance to respond to perhaps the strongest really heartfelt moment in the exchange, and she couldn't meet the challenge. She might have mentioned some of her own suffering. But no...She dodged lots of questions, went her own way with answers. Biden, having been at the experiential center of the political process in government, knew what he was talking about on nearly every subject. A particularly strong moment was his taking on the idea of McCain as 'maverick,' and showing poignantly that McCain was no maverick on taxes, Iraq, education and health care. It's beginning to look, and well it should, like Obama-Biden are going to widen the lead against this pairing that is not only out of touch, but ideologically a repetition of the multiple Bush failures.