Sarah Palin and the Debate

I have to admit, when McCain first announced Sara Palin as his running mate part of me was excited. She was a fresh face, she was exciting, she was young and full of energy. It seemed clear from the minute he picked her that the dynamics of the race had changed. No longer did Barack Obama have singular ownership of claims on vitality, youth, and crowd-pleasing rhetoric. Perhaps she was just what the Republican party and McCain needed. That has worn off over the last few weeks, as I mentioned in my last post. Her lack of knowledge about vital situations essential to someone a breath away from the presidency is stunning, not to mention her fundamentalist views and odd associations with Alaskan Independence parties and a church which banishes demons from her and professes that Alaska is the Land of Refuge, to which we of the lower 48 states will thankfully flee in the (imminent) end times.

I will attempt here to briefly sum up a few instances in which Governor Palin has said something which causes me concern, specifically within the context of the interviews over the last few weeks with various members of the media. The first sign was her interview with Charlie Gibson of ABC, in which she was completely unaware of what the Bush Doctrine meant. It was completely clear that she had never heard this phrase before, which has been the central tenet of U.S. foreign policy in the years since the September 11th attacks (although it could be argued that it has quickly faded as a paradigm). After this interview I was concerned; how could someone with no knowledge of current foreign policy be expected to take the reigns in the middle of an undoubtedly challenging and demanding international situation for the U.S., in the middle of two wars, with a resurgent Russia, a rising China, and an unstable Middle East.

I resolved to hold off on my verdict for the time-being, and waited for Katie Couric's interview, to see if she would handle herself better with another week of study and prepping. She instead showed herself more unprepared, if possible. She began with incoherent statements about Vladimir Putin floating into Alaskan airspace, and then continued by failing to name a single Supreme Court case besides Roe v. Wade which she disagreed with. After this performance she had lost all credibility with me, and I awaited the vice-presidential debate with interest, half-expecting her to self-destruct on stage.

The debate itself was rather disappointing in its mundaneness. Senator Biden, fearful of saying anything which could be interpreted as "bullying" Mrs. Palin, ignored her the entire time, directing his attacks on Senator McCain, and only indirectly acknowledging that she shared the stage with him. Boring as he was, though, it was clear he had a grasp of every issue, and his competence was never questioned. Given that a large portion of the country shared my expectation of Mrs. Palin coming into the debate, all she had to do was not dissolve into incoherent babble and she would come out alright. She managed this handily, by relying on a set memorized responses of around twenty talking points, which matched up loosely with the questions asked. Early in the debate she cannily explained to those watching that she would not be answering the questions as posed, because she would rather speak "directly" to the American people. She threw in some of her folksy charm,winking at the audience and giving a "shout-out" to third-graders back in Wasilla.

After it was over, it was clear that Biden had won the debate if one measured it through the rubric of having and explaining policy differences, or through being qualified to run the country. Given the incredibly low expectations set for Mrs. Palin, however, it seemed that she came out of the debate as having done "better than expected," which perhaps will allow her to reclaim some of her momentum and status as an outsider. This debate seems likely to be looked at overall as a draw, much as last Friday's presidential debate was. This is good news for Senator Obama, as he has decent lead in most swing states and the overall polls, and without a dramatic event (such as the original, but temporary, boost to the McCain ticket when Mrs.Palin entered the race) things look grim for Senator McCain. Sarah Palin, however, lives to fight another day, and if she can manage to remain governor for a few more years, or even grab a Senate seat (depending on circumstances) she could be a force to be reckoned with in the coming years, just based in Anchorage, not Washington.