(no subject)

[randomness]

I'm going to predict that Sarah Palin does much better in the debate than expected.

It may not have been their intent, but the Republicans have played the expectations game beautifully so far. All she has to do is to go out and speak in complete sentences, and she'll be seen to outperform expectations.

Comments

[theloriest.livejournal.com]

As strange as this may seem... she did exceptionally well in the Alaskan debates first against Frank Murkowski, and then against Tony Knowles. I know she's a twit, but I am curious to see if she can pull herself together against Biden.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I mean, it's not like she hasn't been in debates before.

[quezz.livejournal.com]

I think she takes advantage of the fact that men know they can't go after her the way they do less "feminine" female candidates like Hillary Clinton. I think Biden should be as direct with her as possible and get her out of her talking points.

[mangosteen]

On the flip side, she'll be in a different strategic position for this debate. Biden knows what's coming, and has studied her previous debates. That, and she'll be in a one-on-one format where she doesn't get the option of being "above the fray".

It'll be interesting one way or the other, but I think that her previous successes are likely not going to carry over to this coming debate.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Possibly, but my thought is that she has a very low bar to clear; all she really has to do is to survive the debate, not win.

[wolfkitn.livejournal.com]

wow, i *so* disagree. i think if anything, she'd have to come out as a mild/moderate superstar in order to actually positively impact anything. she has to survive to keep from hurting things more, but in order to help? she has to be something more than neutral, and possibly even something more than "good".

of course, this just might be some of my bias peeking through...

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

I think that's your bias.

I think the story for the last week or two has been how incompetent she is. All she needs to do is to demostrate that all that talk is overblown, and she's accomplished something. She doesn't need to look like she's better than Biden, as no one believes that now. So the only place she has to go is up. She just has to look vaguely plausible and she will have beaten expectations.

Now, if she fails to demostrate she's not incompetent, she will have failed. I'll certainly grant that. But that task is much easier than having to out-debate Biden (who, I'll observe, has a habit of sticking his foot in his mouth on occasion).

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

That would be the big concern for the Biden camp, definitely. He does have this way of shooting his mouth off.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

(Also, see my later post regarding her positive impact on the Republican campaign.)

[stolen-tea.livejournal.com]

I think she's going to do the snarky quip thing, and play to the audience, keeping to her sound bites and avoiding substance. It seems to have worked well for her in the past, anyway.

[whitebird.livejournal.com]

The real question is whether or not she'll be wearing an ear bud like Bush did, which allegedly fed him answers.

Now, if only they could faraday cage the podium, just in case...

[kessel.livejournal.com]

I agree with you generally, Leon, but more specifically also with stolen_tea. Watching CNN play the clips of her doing well in the Alaska guber debates, I thought they were playing clips of her doing poorly-- trying to challenge Tony Knowles with a vague question (although context probably would have explained that one) and defusing her inability to weigh in on an issue by making a joke out of not answering. (When the moderator asks her if she has anything to add in the last fifteen seconds, and she says, "No, I'm just glad I'm sitting between these two.") But as long as she stays on the attack, trying to force Biden to gaffe it up, she can come out on top without giving us anything. If Biden says something dumb and she says nothing at all, she wins on a technicality.

Which is why debates should be conducted in reasoned treatises distributed by handbill.