I never underestimate Republicans. But I think there are several important differences between Palin's Alaskan debates and the one she faces tonight:
-In the Alaskan debates, there were only a handful of local issues she had to be aware of. Just living there would make anyone familiar enough to be able to debate them. Tonight will cover a whole host of issues (we don't even know which ones, out of potentially thousands will be addressed) that are not only complicated, factually, but politically, philosophically, etc. I don't think a few weeks training is going to make anyone able to intelligently address whatever comes up.
-Everyone has seen these Alaskan videos. That cutesy, deflective, distraction style of debating is already being seen and defined as such. If she does this tonight, the press/public, being so tuned into that already, will see it and call it what it is.
-What plays at a debate set around a card table in the Juno VFW Hall will not play the same behind a podium on a stage broadcast to the world.
-We will be able to directly compare Palin with Biden. I don't know if you've seen him debate before. But if you compare his standard debate performance side by side with Palin's Alaskan videos, she doesn't appear quite so capable as she does if you view them on their own.
-Despite the low bar the GOP has been trying to set, passing that bar only gives her a, "well, she's not as big a train wreck as I though." result. But I think the bar she needs to reach to get votes from independents is higher than she's capable of.
Art has a double face, of expression and illusion.
Updated On: 10/2/08 at 12:18 PM
