Be warned, I have no experience in doing this and this post is likely to be completely biased and very long-winded (maybe I should be the VP candidate?).
I've been keeping up with the US Election pretty well from across the pond (YouTube is my friend), and from all the commentary, it seems that the tide has turned against Palin and McCain over the past few weeks.
There was the nonsense about "suspending the campaign" last week, single-handedly saving the economy, the absolute hilarity of the Palin/Couric interview clips, as well as the beautifully crafted SNL jabs from Tina Fey (here and here).
But what I think will happen is not a landslide victory for the Democrats, even though the McCain campaign seems to be imploding. Tonight, Biden may very well mop the floor with Palin's inexperience, her lack of foreign policy knowledge, and lack of any real substance in general. But I'm worried that's not how it's going to play out.
The expectations have been set so low for the Governor, that as long as she leaves the debate without having collapsed on the floor after exhaustively repeating the phrase "I can see Russia from my house", she'll be viewed as a winner. It's a sad state of affairs.
The other hand I expect what will get played out a lot during the debate is the question "Is Biden being condescending/paternalistic/mean?" You may have seen the clip from the last major debate between male and female VP candidates Bush and Feraro (thanks again YouTube). Anything Biden says tonight that calls into question Palins (obvious) lack of experience or knowledge is going to be twisted by the McCain campaign as "mean", "sexist" or "elitist".
Guess what people, it's not sexist if Palin doesn't know the answer to something. He's not beating up on her because she's a woman. I thought Hillary did a fine job over the past year of tackling the question of "Can a woman be president?" head-on. It's not because she's a woman that she doesn't know (I thought Hillary cleared up that misconception quite well over the past year). It's because she DOESN'T KNOW THE ANSWER.
It should be a no-contest debate. We have the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee (and 4-term senator) going up against someone who didn't get a passport (and hasn't been outside of North America) until last year. Biden is able to pull out years and years of foreign policy experience and extensive knowledge of how the world works, and Palin simply is not. There should be no point of contention. A more productive debate might be "Is the sky blue?" or "Does the Pope wear a funny hat?"
As an aside, the idea that labeling Obama/Biden as "elitist" is one of the funniest campaign techniques I've ever seen. Why do people seem to want their president to be "one of us"? I'm not smart enough to be president. Why would I possibly want you or me, or someone "like us", to run the biggest superpower in the world? I haven't got a clue how to run this country. I want the best educated, most internationally acclaimed, MOST elite person in the country to be president. I don't want my neighbor to have the job; they can hardly remember trash day, much less negotiate with dissenting world leaders. I want, and I think we need, somebody to bring America back into the fold of international politics, not keep them as a pariah.
So, here's my final prediction for what happens tonight.
- Sarah Palin sticks to Republican talking points, gets flustered a few times in the back-and-forth, but general sticks to her message.
- Biden stays calm through most of the debate, but then gets flustered and lashes out at Palin once or twice with real questions that she can't answer.
- The media completely ignores the lack of substance coming from Palin and focuses all their energy on repeating the 10 second clip where Biden was "mean" to Palin.
- Republicans view the whole night as a victory, blame the "liberal media" for taking jabs at Palin.
- Democrats view the whole night as a victory, blame the "conservative media" for ignoring important questions about Palin's readiness.
- Somebody says something about a pig or pitbull wearing lipstick.
- The public, in desperate need of a debate about real issues, watches Dancing With the Stars instead.
