Gidget Goes to Washington

After Sarah Palin's fourth wink during the Vice Presidential debate Thursday night, I dubbed the event Gidget Goes to Washington. Regardless of the political consequences of the debate -- and we'll cover those -- the woman is an embarrassment. It is absolutely not because she's stupid. It's because she's out of her current depth. Moreover, the McCain campaign "forcing" her into this folksy rag doll persona -- Caribou Barbi -- is an affront to the people at which it's actually aimed. It's style over substance, although not admitting that the English language has consonents may be stretching the "style" label a bit far. As Carl Bernstein put it, she was "all prep and no depth." (Bernstein's is a great editorial, BTW.)

That she is so unprepared to be president -- and that standard should be the qualification for being vice president -- tells one all one needs to know about John McCain. He rolled the dice to become president at the peril of the nation and this is evident every time this woman opens her mouth without a speech in front of her. The format for this debate was perfect for Palin because it forbid follow-up questions. That is the difference between her better performance here and the appalling work she put in with Katie Couric in the past two weeks. In other words, no one could call her either on her not answering the questions or answering them incorrectly.

Really, we were seeing two debates Thursday night. Joe Biden was debating John McCain. Sarah Palin was debating Sarah Palin. By that I mean that Biden's goal was to forcefully link McCain to the presidency of George W. Bush, something that he accomplished I think. Sarah Palin on the other hand, had the goal of stopping herself from becoming a laughing stock and thus killing the ticket. Actually, she did this by not melting down. This may seem at odds with my previous analysis. However, it is not. She is a buffoon, but a buffoon that did her job politically. She did well enough to stop the bleeding of conservative support. That was her baseline for personal victory.

Beyond that, the night was certainly a victory for Obama. Palin's cutsie manner had me thinking that it wouldn't play well to Independant voters. Moreover, she often failed to answer the questions asked of her. I wondered whether folks would pick up on this; A blizzard of words often works in a debate. However, early polling seems to indicate that people were not suckered. They saw that she really didn't do much up there but smile, wink, and say "maverick" over and over and over. Oh, and over. And that isn't going to cut it.

Things are not looking good for McCain right now. He's pulled out of Michigan and will now only defend states that Bush won in 2004. Defending only your own territory and pushing into none of your opponent's is not the way to win an election. Also, McCain plans to up the ante on negative campaigning. Indeed, a full 100% of his future weekly add buy will be negative. While it often has worked in the past -- it got both Bushes elected after all -- it is a sign of desperation. (Speaking of desperate, McCain is even campaigning in Nebraska to shore up support in this reddest of red states. Yikes!) There is little time for it to work and all of the political landscape keeps tilting Obama's way. I mean, is McCain lying about William Ayer's connection to Obama really going to make folks forget that their homes/jobs/insurance is on the line?

What is more, the Trooper-Gate report is set to land next week in spite of everything that the McCain campaign has done to try to kill it... and that is A LOT! Combine that with Palin's release of her tax records and that they indicate that she and her husband may have violated several tax laws and it only gets worse. (One other nugget from the debate that may get play is that Palin claimed that her administration as governor tried to divest Alaskan funds from Sudan after the attrocities in Darfur began. In reality, she blocked such divestment. This woman does have a healthy pair!)

Perhaps the biggest problem that McCain has is that the press, long his self-proclaimed "political base," is mistrustful of him... even resentful. And it is for good reason. His running mate is hiding from them. He openly lies to them... even when they call him on it outright. This means that more and more, the media will start telling the truth -- or a closer version of it -- about McCain, rather than the he's-a-maverick bullshit that we were fed for the past two years. Indeed, Rolling Stone has just such a new article out now.

The only reasons I'm not calling this thing for Obama right now are twofold. First, he's black and second, there could be an October Bin Laden surprise.

On Obama being black, we are in uncharted territory here. Folks have a history -- sadly -- of telling pollsters one thing and voting another. Is a five point lead really a five point lead for Obama... or is it a two point lead because he's African-American? I have hope, not in the goodness of the hearts of my fellow men overall, but that so many new potential voters have registered because of Obama that this possible effect of racism will be reduced. We shall see and I'll "know" a whole lot more when we are 15 days out from the election than I do now.

As for Bid Laden, many believe that his release of a new tape on the Friday before the 2004 election lost it for Kerry. It switched the race just enough to the traditional Republican stronghold of foreign affairs at the last minute to get Bush his extra 1%. Bin Laden is no idiot; militaristic Republicans are the single best al Qaeda recruiting tool that he has. John McCain would be much, much better news for Bin Laden than would Barack Obama.

So, back to the debate... I thought Palin did about what I thought she would. She put a McCain campaign spin on on her debating performances during her race for governor. As I said, she's not an idiot. In time and with the right education -- and the desire to be educated, of course -- she could be worthy of federal office. As it now stands, this is simply not the case.

And the clock is ticking...

4 October 2008

Note: Remember that I linked a lot of post-debate reviews and op-eds in my post yesterday. You can also find the link to a full-length video of the debate itself. Check the post out.

6 October 2008 Addition: A friend just sent me this link detailing two tax experts' opinions that Palin did in fact violate tax laws on the returns that were made public.