Exactly. The standard for Palin should be the same as for Biden, that of, is this person prepared to be the president? Not whether they are prepared to be the VP.

There is no unique preparation to be the VP because the VP has almost no duties under the Constitution aside from becoming the president in an emergency. The qualifications/ability required of the Presidential candidates is exactly the same for the VP candidates.

Frankly, I would expect the monkey to do better than Palin.

I'm surprised the media and the McCain campaign itself are downplaying Palin's expectations. Didn't she get a degree in broadcast journalism? Wasn't she a television news correspondent (sports)? Given that education and career experience she SHOULD perform very well. Unfortunately substance, at which she will muddle through with memorized talking points, means less than the performance. I expect a lot of nasty zingers from her. It may not go as well (meaning as bad) as we all hope.

It does seem the expectations are being set for Biden to come off as too wonkish or bullying, and as such, they are set rather low for him too. Biden is capable of being passionate, gutsy, and personable, and certainly much more mavericky than McPalin, and consistent with the Obama campaign style, he will be addressing and appealing to the voters rather than to the media and instead of focusing on Palin.

Meanwhile, Palin will have been trained to engage in ideological and personal attacks against Biden, and with their incompetent delivery, the contrast will be abysmal.

I welcome this focus on the expectations for Gov. Palin for it allows Biden to walk in to the debate and outperform the underanalyzed expectations the media have set for him.

Hmmm.... I agree totally!!!

That's why I posted the same idea at 9:45am (45 minutes before this post was born....)... and got no responses... Strange.

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/10/one-bar-standard.php

I wish there were an "EDIT" feature on this board so I could go back and fix my mistake(s). Boy, am I embarrassed.

The moderator will have to call her on it.

And yes, I wish that expectations had not been set so low BEFORE the debate. Would've been better for the Couric interviews to air next week.

The NYTimes says that all Palin has to do is avoid obvious flubs to win the debate.

Has the McCain campaign released the Sara Palin victory ad yet?

Don't insult the monkey

She has this tendency to miander (how do you spell that?). Bla bla bla bla bla. That radio interview...she was all over the place. One answer to one question, please. Please do not go off topic. And, she'll go off topic. And sound like an idiot.

Plus, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see her go after Biden in a very aggressive manner. And, I believe that will make her look pretty bad, over the course of 90 minutes.

I too have seen and have posted excerpts of her debates in the gubernatorial race. She was fairly coherent answering values questions as well as Alaska specific issues such as subsistence hunting and infrastructure. My read is she was unprepared for the national scene and is clearly not well versed in national issues. Given time (such as the usual surrogate to VP process) she might have done much better.

As for the expectations game, I'd agree with the poster above who mentioned that perception is key. If Palin gives non-sensical and circular answers, she'll be perceived as unqualified, regardless of the expectations, and it will hurt the McCain team. If she gives reasonable answers and holds her own, some people may re-evaluate.

I'm sure Biden has been well coached that he needs to be on message attacking McCain, and largely sidestep or not directly take on Palin, as Palin is likely to commit so many unforced errors a direct Biden response may not be necessary. He should, however, avoid the same kind of negative body language like Charlie Gibson showed, looking down his nose at notes, or McCain, who didn't seem to look at Obama at all.

If the Palin performance at the debate is a debacle, I'd be quite happy to eat any of these words...

One thing that occurs to me is that neither Palin or Biden can help their ticket all that much but they both can hurt them.

What I mean is that most people don't vote a ticket becuse of the VP candidate. But a really bad VP candidate could cause people to have second doubts. By that standard Palin is more likely to do damage, even though Biden has his own history with gaffes. I think given the events of the last six weeks or so, undecided voters are giving a lot of scrutiny to Palin, because they're looking for a way to gage McCain's judgement.

In other words, a bad Palin performance will cement the perception that most people now have that McCain simply doesn't know what he's doing. A bad performance by Biden would not have nearly the same effect. In my opinion any pundit who downplays the importance of Palin's debate perfomance is due to be rudely surprised when McCain loses another two points or so if she doesn't hit a home run.

I think Libertine's post is most illuminating here. (Although I doubt not that TenaX could take a four, Hell, TWO week correspondence course and wipe Palin's tail in debate. ;-) Or even without said course.)

Really, I have never believed this woman to be stupid. Perhaps not likely to earn a degree in Molecular Physics anytime soon, but not stupid. But...

I think with Palin the reason she comes off as such a dingbat (and effectively is) is that she is as provincial a person as one could meet. I mean, she had no passport until she was 40-something? How often did she ever get out of Alaska over the course of her life? (Seee: visit the lower 48.) By the time I was 20 I'd been abroad 5 times. Yes, I had advantages others don't (i.e. well-to-do parents), but there are others lacking said advantages whom, if they can't find a way to travel abroad, have the strong desire to do so. What am I getting at? Simple: it all boils down to intellectual curiosity. Few people in this world are genuinely stupid, but a fair number lack even a shred of intellectual curiosity, and the end result is the same. Travel abroad-or at least a strong desire to do so--is one of the surest indications that one possesses (or lacks) intellectual curiosity. Need another example? Witness George W. Bush.

End of sermon. ;-)

Robert

Last time I checked, I never saw a coach thanking the selfless sacrifice of his/her players for that "moral victory" they are celebrating in the locker room after losing the game.

That is the only outcome possible for her. Let the right wing-nut spinners say how good she did and that she won. It's immaterial to the voter's perceptions at this point. Obama supporters shouldn't say much beyond how much fun Joe looked like he was having.

In the post game wrap-up, Joe should pay her some nice compliment and then say how much he enjoyed being able to contribute and how much fun he is having being a part of a great team.

You absolutely nailed it.

Nicely done!

Calm down, put the gun away Jack.

Most people know it's some kind of a tactic to make her debate performance relative to her other flop performances. Nothing she does from now on can erase the flops. She is now the Queen of YouTube where you can find all her worst public utterances.

I can't even begin to imagine how she is suddenly going to morph into an intelligent well-informed person, a debate-hustler.

No doubt she will be stuffed with facts from debate camp but she likely won't put the facts in the right places. She'll just "meander in a fruitless search for coherence."

I wonder what are the betting odds on her contradicting McCain policy in the debate.

Palin is going to try to hammer square pegs into round holes all night providing more Saturday Night Live fodder.

All Biden needs to do is be concise to win... her only hope is that he famously runs at the mouth and she doesn't have to elaborate on any answers. She does not do follow up questions very well.