I watched the Vice Presidential debate the other night…admittedly to watch Sarah Palin crash and burn. However, she did much better than expected. Good for her that the expectations were set so low.
The point here is that though she made it through the debate relatively unscathed, my impression of her did change immensely. I no longer feel that Sarah Palin is incompetent and unfit–she is incompetent, unfit, AND dangerous.
To put on an air of folksy charm in order to relate to the common voter is the making the unfortunate–but accurate– assumption that the common voter is an idiot. Those holding office at the federal level should be the best and the brightest that our nation has to offer. I found her confidence in her talking points and position discomforting since they were rooted in something Stephen Colbert refers to as “truthiness”… it has the sound of truth and common sense, without the annoying hassle of facts to back it up.
Why is this dangerous? Had Sarah Palin strode across that stage and gave a repeat performance of the CBS interview with Katie Couric would have knocked the wind out of the conservative base’s support for the ticket. Instead, Palin set the bar low and then stepped over it gingerly at the debates giving the campaign a much needed break from bad press. This puts her that much closer to the Executive/Legislative branch (since she seems to think that the constitution gives the VP more flexibility in the Senate).
McCain selected his VP for purely political reasons. He knew that the conservative evangelical base was not enthusiastic enough about his candidacy too put him comfortably ahead of Obama. Included in this calculation was the chance poach disaffected Hillary Clinton supporters who were upset about her loss and the subsequent circle-jerk sideshow at the DNC.
While this strategy paid off in the short term, the obvious lack of vetting of Palin and the campaigns refusal to allow her to talk to the media quickly began to erode her new found popularity. Then came Charlie Gibson, the Sean Hannity softball-fest, and Couric. The pundits began to set the expectations for Palin’s encounter with Biden very low.
Not helping matters either was the top half of the ticket. In the span of 2 weeks McCain stuck his foot in his mouth about the “fundamentals of the economy”, spun the definition of the economic fundamentals, and had a very curmudgeony meltdown in front of the Des Moines Register editorial board that did him no favors given his reputation for cantankerous and abrasive behavior.
Of course the largest nail in the tire of the McCain/Palin “Straight Talk Express” was the current economic crisis that began with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and most recently claimed Wachovia. This sparked one of John McCain’s famous campaign suspensions (remember the 1999 Kosovo issue?). However after “suspending” his campaign and making a big production of heading to Washington to give Congress a push for the bailout, Congress ultimately did it without him and many would argue that he actually impeded the progress.
Adding this all together–including how throughout the entire process Obama was cool, collected and even Presidential in front of cameras while McCain seemed annoyed–it was a very bad 3 weeks for the Republican ticket. McCain had pushed a very large pile of chips to the center of the table and only to have the his own party in the House sweep those chips over to Obama.
So now everything was on Palin’s shoulders…and she managed to eke out a minor victory for the Republicans. While not victorious in the debate, she managed to save herself from becoming a campaign trail joke for decades.
Her performance may have given the the McCain/Palin ticket the breathing room it needs to allow them to squeak out a Republican win in November and put her one cliché closer to the Presidency. Ah, the soft bigotry…
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