Vice Presidential Debate
Thursday night's Vice Presidential Debate may break the audience record of 80 million for the Carter-Reagan debate in 1980. The first McCain-Obama debate only attracted 52 million. Sarah Palin is the reason why the record might fall.
The Palin choice was quite a surprise. Many Republicans treated it like a breath of fresh air in a fart factory. Many women wanted to embrace her gender. Many men just wanted to embrace her [McCain quickly abandoned the Mondale Ferraro "no touching" rule, to allow hugs]. Many Democrats were dumbfounded. The media was ecstatic - a Gubernatorial beauty queen in glasses and an updo who dukes it out with the good ole boys and can field dress a moose [city slicker that I am, I confess I did not even know moose (plural Meese?) wore clothes].
Questions of "vetting" [a fabricated word of unknown origin, arguably overused, but quite widely understood] were raised. Was this a political trick showing poor McCain judgment and that he places "County second"? Initial responses from the McCain campaign were so weak that people quickly turned to Palin herself for the answers. But already the campaign was hiding her from the media, thereby increasing concern. Information was sought without going through the campaign, and every day new material popped out, all of it negative and raising questions not only about the vetting process but also about Palin's qualifications.
People said Palin gave a great Convention speech and was doing well with McCain on the stump. But then they were reminded she was just reading from the Teleprompter what had been written for her and she was repeating it on the campaign trail. It started to sound too familiar - especially "I told Congress thanks but no thanks" and " I put it on e-bay", both of which turned out not to be true. They also noticed that she was not taking questions or giving interviews, and rarely attended events without McCain. Pressure was mounting for her to give an interview and answer the questions that were being raised about her.
Her first interview, with ABC, was not reassuring. Her second, with Fox [Fixed News per Keith Olbermann] was an infomercial. Her recent talk with Katie Couric was devastating. Palin appeared to be a person of very shallow knowledge, disguised by confident bravado and recitation of slogans and catch phrases in lieu of substantive information [sound Presidentially familiar?]. Her sequestration and training by the McCain campaign seemed to be backfiring, undermining her confidence and taking away her fresh naturalness. But is her fresh naturalness limited to just that - with little else to back it up? From what is known and has been seen so far, Sarah Palin appears to be almost totally unqualified to hold national office. Thursday is her opportunity to show America that the picture of her as unqualified is not really who she is.
Thursday Republicans will be watching and praying that Palin comes across better than she has in previous unscripted appearances. Women will be watching and cringing, in spite of their political views, knowing that a Palin fall will not so much be an indictment of women candidates, but rather another example of mistreatment of women at the hands of men, this time by John McCain and his male cohorts who put Palin in this spot. Men, depending on their chauvinism level, will either be checking out her bod or cringing with the women. Democrats will be hoping that Palin shows that what we have been seeing is what we would be getting. However it goes, the media will be delighted with the high interest level and the numerous possible outcomes and opportunities for Monday morning quarterbacking [in fairness to Sarah Barracuda, that should be point guarding].
Advice to Biden has been consistent - put a cork in it. Do not condescend or attack Palin. Attack McCain quickly and defend Obama as needed, then stop and let Palin talk. The more she repeats her canned comments the more spurious they will sound. Silence is her enemy; she tries to fill it, often with bad results, so Biden should give her the time. The McCain campaign is aware of this and negotiated to reduce the five minute exchange periods of the Presidential debate to two minutes. Biden needs to have Palin talk as much as possible. He should do things like graciously say that America knows what he thinks, but wants to hear more from Governor Palin, so he would like her to take more time to expound on her answers. But he has to do it in a way that does not sound like a put down. He can do it in the form of a short question to her.
Expectations for Palin are not high, so she just has to get out of the evening without damaging herself by spouting nonsense like "you can see Russia from Alaska" being a credential for foreign policy experience. She has been force fed so much information that she has to boil it down to a few sound bites for each general topic area. She is good at doing that - it is kind of like reading a Teleprompter from memory. Where she gets into trouble is with follow up questions asking her to explain further, in which case she is inclined to repeat her canned answer (which makes her sound like a robot) or to use generic double talking non-sequitors (which make her sound like a babbler).
The moderator, Gwen Ifill of PBS, should be excellent. The audience can identify her with both candidates, since Gwen is an African-American woman. Like Jim Lehrer at the Presidential debate, Gwen will not make herself a point of focus. She will ask fair questions and try to administer the time properly. If Biden decides to let Palin have more time, Gwen may try to come back to him for more response, but if she does, he needs to politely stick to his guns. Gwen will very likely need to request follow up from Palin, but will have to do it in a way that does not sound like she is targeting her.
This debate should be fascinating. Biden is too much of a gentleman to be rough on Palin. He could sound condescending, but he is smart enough to avoid that. He could make a small gaffe, but not of importance. But he might have trouble cutting himself off to let Palin have more time. Geraldine Ferraro held her own with Bush I in their debate, but then Sarah Palin is no Geraldine Ferraro. Palin should do OK on the Obama attacks and pat answers, but the follow ups are where all the risk is at with her. I think the real danger is that, if Palin lets herself be the real Sarah, fresh and natural and talkin' [she likes the folksiness of g dropping] straight to the American people, she will reveal herself as a stereotypical Miss Congeniality - a nice enough woman, but running for an elective office that is way over her head. Undecided voters are the key to the election, and they will be watching Thursday to see if Sarah Palin appears capable of being President if she had to. Even if Palin gets through the evening without error, I do not see how that will be persuasive to these key voters.
posted by Tom Blake | 11:21 AM
1 Comments:
I watched the VP debate live, then a re-run with focus group meters, and I listened to various post debate commentary.
Gwen Ifill did an excellent job, as expected. She resisted any temptation to impale Palin.
Biden was super, the best I have ever seen him. He did exactly what he had to do, and he did it to near perfection. He was respectful to Palin and did not personally challenge her or project condescension. He concisely stated facts showing McCain wrong on all issues and Obama correct. He made no gaffes. Most importantly, he projected a sincere passion to help America out of the messes we are in, both domestic and foreign, and he indicated clear plans to do so, contrasting this to the McCain talk without any specific plans other than more tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy.
Palin did a good job of executing her assignment, to not look totally unqualified as she has in her interviews. The format was very helpful to her, because the time allotted on each question could be easily filled with rehearsed sound bites and slogans. She was also protected by the reluctance of the moderator and her opponent to challenge her, lest they be seen as piling on abusively. In her brief political career, Palin has managed to use the weak female ploy to discourage counter punches by male opponents, a tactic not likely to work against a knowledgeable female candidate or a world leader of any gender.
After her interview flubs, some Republican pundits were starting to give up on Palin. She did well enough last night to stop their calls for her withdrawal. But any intelligent and honest pundit could see that Palin had been programmed by her trainers and was a good human computer in absorbing the program and spewing it back out. She was trained to listen to the question only to pick up the general theme and then to use that theme to play back her pitch on that point. When in doubt, she cold fall back on slogans and failsafes: tax cuts to stimulate the economy; eliminate greed on Wall Street and in Washington; Mavericks; reform; bi-partisan; middle class; small business; and whenever in doubt, good ole energy, from American oil and natural gas, particularly from good ole Alaska.
Palin claimed another one-sided advantage early on, telling Ifill and Biden that she was not going to give them the answers they wanted to hear, but rather the answers she wanted to give to America - the straight talk. This was a brazen move, to dismiss the agreed debate format and just say whatever she wanted, regardless of the question. In fairness, Palin did not duck every question, but though candidates always duck some, Palin did duck considerably more than normal. It was easier for her to duck because of the short time frame for answers and the reluctance to beat up on her.
Palin cultivates her folksy hockey mom style linguistically, which works with that part of the Republican base impressed with culture wars. She drops the letter g and uses the pronoun "ya", alone and in combos like "I betcha". She answered all questions from the moderator without any personal engagement, instead talking directly to the camera. Some people, usually less experienced, think this comes across more personal to voters, but more experienced debaters say engagement with the moderator comes across as more sincere and less canned. It is easier to talk to a camera that cannot question back. Palin even winked at the camera a couple times, as if to share a little secret, unbeknownst to Biden and the moderator.
As with the first Presidential debate, partisan pundits aside, the consensus seems to be that the Democrat beat the Republican, most importantly with undecided voters. Focus group meters were positive much more often when Biden was speaking than for Palin. Quick polls showed both candidates gained points, moving Palin from questioanbly qualified to apparently qualified, and Biden from well qualified to extremely well qualified.
On substance, Palin had been programmed to run away from Bush without specifically mentioning him, and then to try to bury the past and accuse the Democrats of always wanting to look back and place blame. This won't work. Perhaps a little off program, she seemed to agree with civil rights for gay and lesbian couples, as long as marriage was kept to heterosexuals. She did not challenge that her tax on oil companies, part of which she rebated to taxpayers, was a windfall profits tax on oil companies, which McCain opposes nationwide. She also seemed to be laying groundwork to expand the powers of the VP even more than Cheney has. This latter may be reveal a plan by Cheney types to use Palin as a way around the Maverick McCain.
It would be nice if Palin regained enough confidence to give more interviews, with followup questions and direct engagement, but that is not going to happen. She is not trusted by her handlers to do anything except stay on the program they write for her. Tina Fey on SNL has a challenge to come up with good material out of this debate for her ongoing Palin satire. Compared to the bungled Palin interviews, her debate performance was pretty boring, so I don't expect to see it played back much, though the bungles and the Fey satires will continue to be widely viewed. That is the price Palin pays for ducking the media.
This debate was not a game changer; it just stopped McCain from getting skunked. Obama still leads in the polls and in most of the internal numbers, as well as in the projected electoral vote race. The Presidential Town Hall on Tuesday, with voter questions, should also be quite interesting. This format is favored by McCain, so he has raised his own bar. I really would like to see Palin do one of these, but it is not going to happen because she cannot handle being asked followup questions by knowledgeable interrogators, and I suspect many voters who would ask questions at Town Hall meetings may actually know more than Sarah Palin.
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