Democrats, prepare yourselves: odds are high that Sarah Palin is going to charm America’s pants off tonight. Why? Because the campaign has been so pilloried for wrapping her in a protective cocoon, feeding her campaign talking points that, when she spits them back out, they sound not merely like platitudes, but like nonsense. There’s no time to actually learn the points behind the talking, and the campaign has learned that lesson after a week of humiliating Katie Couric coverage. So the story now goes, they are going to free Sarah Palin. She’s going to be herself, which is what scared Democrats when she first burst onto the scene a month ago.
Tonight, Sarah Barracuda is going up against the bloviator, as his critics call him. Joe Biden has been in the Senate for more than 30 years. He’s polished, articulate (ha, and clean too;o) and very knowledgeable on any policy Gwen Ifill might possibly throw at the candidates tonight. But people won’t relate to him unless his demeanor and answers come off more blue collar than they do Washingtonian. He has two famous weaknesses: the sound of his voice (he enjoys it too much), and his lack of an “inappropriate comment” filter. And because of his heightened awareness of his rep as a gaffe-prone monologist, he could turn in a soft performance, or try bizarre self-deprecation, like saying Hillary Clinton would have been a better pick than him. Still, Biden’s command of all of the issues of the day is reassuring to a panicky cash and credit-strapped electorate.
For her part, Palin is so well known for a sentence structure to nowhere that she has practically nowhere to go tonight but up. If she turns in a shaky or poor performance tonight, McCain will have two choices: pack it in, or bring back Reverend Wright with a vengeance that may or may not backfire. But I digress.
Palin was a small town mayor just 5 years ago, and that helps people to relate to her on a personal level. Her manner of speaking, when it makes sense, is reassuring in its familiarity, if not its substance. And, I assume Palin got the Barracuda nickname for a reason. We’ve already seen on the campaign trail that she’s not afraid to hurl canned attack lines over enemy lines. A Campaign aide claims that Palin is “in a fighting mood” after the criticism she’s received recently. So, we can expect her to hammer Obama (may not be necessary to bother with Biden, just as Biden has been advised to politely ignore Palin and hit McCain) and look and sound “fiesty”. Amy Poehler nailed it in her last SNL skit (she played Katie Couric) when she asked Tina Fey’s Palin “It seems to me that when cornered, you become increasingly adorable. Is that fair to say?”
One of the biggest mistakes Palin keeps making, though, is that it takes her three tries to say, essentially, “I’m not an expert on that, but here’s my gut feeling.” So, when asked by her press pool of 1, Katie Couric, what other Supreme Court decisions she disagreed with (besides Roe v. Wade), she said this:
Palin: Well, let’s see. There’s, of course in the great history of America there have been rulings, that’s never going to be absolute consensus by every American. And there are those issues, again, like Roe v. Wade, where I believe are best held on a state level and addressed there. So you know, going through the history of America, there would be others but …
Couric: Can you think of any?
Palin: Well, I could think of … any again, that could be best dealt with on a more local level. Maybe I would take issue with. But, you know, as mayor, and then as governor and even as a vice president, if I’m so privileged to serve, wouldn’t be in a position of changing those things but in supporting the law of the land as it reads today.
She should have said, on the first go, “You know, Katie, I’m not a Supreme Court scholar. But what I will tell you is that if I should be in the position to nominate anyone to that highest court in this great country, I would be guided by the same principles I stand by on Roe v. Wade. I’m going to want to see judges who will uphold states’ rights, and stick to the constitution.” Had she admitted up front to Couric that she simply didn’t have a court case to name, she might have spared herself (and us) the agony.
Joe Biden, who gets so little attention these days, deserves credit for a polished interview with Katie “She’s Everywhere” Couric this week. Compare Couric’s Q and A on Roe v. Wade with each of them. Biden handles it delicately, but he’s very articulate (without being too high-minded) and resolutely invokes the critical principle behind the Court’s decision: the right to privacy. When Couric asks Palin about if she believes in the right to privacy, on which Couric noted that ruling turned, you get the sense she didn’t already know, and didn’t connect the dots. Instead, she just sort of kept reaching for home base . . . the talking point on states’ rights.
If Palin manages to get through this debate gaffe-free, it won’t be enough to win back the momentum for the McCain ticket. The Couric interviews irreparably shook people’s confidence in Palin. But this debate could at least stop the bleeding.
