Gov. Sarah Palin’s efforts to weave frayed Republicans together have successfully failed. The only scheduled vice presidential debate is tonight, and Palin’s continuous screw-up’s (Palin-isms) have actually benefited her.
In the last week, Palin butchered an interview with Katie Couric. She stumbled incoherently when talking about the economic crisis. Afterwards, she continued to defend Alaska’s proximity to Russia as foreign policy expertise. Her exact words were, “as Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where-- where do they go? It's Alaska.”
What was perceived as a terrible response will actually propel her in tonight’s debate. For the last three weeks, Saturday Night Live’s Tina Fey, has been a goldmine with her political satires of Palin. Fey’s impersonations have been scrutinized by Republicans claiming the skits were written by eastern elites. Although probably not intended, the impersonations have dropped America’s expectations of the vice presidential candidate, thus making a meager performance at tonight’s debate acceptable.
It’s not just the “eastern elites” that have scrutinized Palin, but members of her own party. Most famously, Kathleen Parker, a right-wing columnist, who has called for Palin’s resignation saying the candidate, should “bow out” as the only way to save McCain from loosing this election.
The bar for Palin has been set so low that only a monumental blunder could take away her inevitable success. This gives her an additional advantage other than being a woman. Biden has to keep his emotions under control so he is not portrayed as sexist, and now he has to outperform Palin by extraordinary levels to be victorious.
Surely the McCain camp will be drilling information into the Alaskan governor’s head in preparation for tonight’s debate. In order to compete with Biden, year’s worth of economics, international affairs and domestic policies have to be learned. All the campaign can hope for is a night of few mistakes. |
