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Posting on behalf of Emily Yoffe, who's traveling:
Biden won, but more important, Sarah Palin rehabilitated herself from being a national joke. If she’d been performing as she did tonight during her big media interviews, she would have saved all of us a lot of existential squirming. And whatever your politics, I'd rather not have one of the candidates for the second-highest office in the country appear to be a fool. This makes her less of an issue, less of Exhibit A of John McCain's bad judgment. So, doesn’t tonight's debate makes the conventional wisdom right—that the vice-presidential pick really doesn't matter that much?
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The debate is over, and the Republican base is breathing a huge sigh of relief. Sarah Palin didn't make a royal mess of the debate, something that a lot of us feared might happen after her disastrous sitdown with Katie Couric.
Yes, she benefited from the fact she didn't have to take follow-ups, and she benefited from low expectations. But she was tough and charming, and she held her own against an opponent with vastly more experience and who was on his game in his own right. She almost made me want to believe in a windfall profits tax.
This is precisely what I was hoping for. I like her personally—she's endearing, even with that accent—and we share some important beliefs. (Not all. I will cheer the day any presidential or VP candidate, Republican or Democrat, stands onstage in an important debate and calls out for marriage equality.) However inexperienced she might be, I don't want her to get the blame for taking the whole ticket down with her.
Before McCain stunned all of us with the Palin pick, the consensus is that it's rare for a vice-presidential candidate to make a big difference in the outcome of the election. But then Palin took McCain on a meteoric rise and seemed poised to take him to equally low depths. I think, or at least hope, that she halted that tonight.
I don't know if McCain is going to get a boost from it. She might not pick up any independents. If you look at the instant—and unscientific—Internet polls that appear on Drudge and some of the news sites, they are laughably partisan. Drudge an InstaPundit readers love Palin. MSNBC.com, home to Keith Olbermann, has Biden winning by ridiculous margins.
There's no doubt that McCain is in trouble. He's trailing in the polls, and some of that has got to be because Obama is viewed by voters as better on the economy and the way the House Republicans made him look bad on the bailout. It's going to take more than an amazing vice-presidential nominee to pull him out of that. She saved his campaign five weeks ago. It would be nice if she could do more interviews and perform well in them. But at the end of the day, it's still John McCain running for president. Let's at least say that if Obama beats McCain next month, it's because Barack's the better candidate, not because a hockey mom from Alaska brought down the GOP.
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Does it make any sense to say that as expected, Sarah Palin exceeded expectations? She didn't flail. She didn't lose her train of thought or all semblance of recognizable syntax. She powered through her answers, airy and bloated as some of them were. She snapped out of the stumped distress of her Couric interviews and turned back into the perky forceful governor who showed up at the Republican convention. What made the spell-breaking difference? She had more facts at her fingertips. She got to needle an opponent, which she clearly loves and does well. But the real magic, I think, is that she didn't have to answer a single follow-up question. God bless that format.
So Palin redeemed herself. But how much does it matter? Because Joe Biden was good. She knifed him in the ribs with a smile, with a wink here, a "darn right" there. And he came back with strength, emotion, and point-by-point substance. According to those mesmerizing green and orange lines on CNN that tracked reactions among undecided Ohio voters—men and women separated this time, instead of Republicans, Democrats, and independents—Biden's numbers spiked every time he talked about the economy and the Iraq war. Palin's didn't. It doesn't matter how many times she says "doggone it" if that reflects the wider sentiment of voters in the middle. Palin got her base back, if she'd ever lost it. But with JohnMcCain writing off Michigan today, that's not enough. How many people who didn't already agree with Palin did her restored charm win over?
What did you all think of Biden's tearing up, briefly, at the end? It worked for me: He was talking about the terrible car accident that killed his first wife and their baby daughter. He choked up in the midst of a powerful answer about how he understands what it's like to be a single parent and to worry deeply about one's family.
My favorite Palin moment: "The chant is 'Drill baby drill,' "she corrected Biden, who'd said, "drill drill drill," and for emphasis she gave a little shimmy. That's the effective blend of femininity and toughness that has made a lot of us waste a lot of time this fall watching her every move. Welcome back, Sarah Barracuda.
My favorite Biden moment: his deconstruction of Palin's much-repeated mantra that she and McCain are the mavericks in this race. Biden ripped her on the facts, citing all the votes McCain has cast with Bush.Then he ended with "maverick he is not." It had gravitas, it was on message, and as my colleague John Swansburg said, it felt cathartic.
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I think it’s fair to say that gender was just not an issue tonight. Biden didn’t get all weird about it. Palin didn’t, either. Also fair to say that both sides exceeded expectations. By a lot. Biden was as good as I have ever seen him. Palin was almost as good as she was at the convention. Here’s the difference: Biden was like Obama last week: a flatline. OK, maybe a flatline with tears, but, still, he didn’t modulate or escalate or hyperventilate. He just made his points—“a maverick he is not”—and stayed right on task. At his very best moments—talking about Cheney for instance—he was devastating. Whereas Palin was like McCain last week, reinventing herself on the fly. She toggled back and forth between Farmers Almanac Sarah (with the “gol-durnds,” and the “bless-yer-hearts,” and that wacky “diverse family”) and PowerPoint Sarah, who spoke in canned talking points, regardless of the question posed. As was the case with McCain last week, her rhetorical mood swings became ever more jarring as Biden stayed on message. Palin will get props tonight for holding her own. But I have to say I am less certain than ever of which Sarah Palin she was trying to hold onto.
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The most telling moment for me: Gwen Ifill asks both candidates to acknowledge their own worst flaws, their “Achilles' heels.” Biden jokingly thanks Ifill for suggesting that his worst flaw may be a lack of self-discipline before citing his “excessive passion” for the American people. A little disingenuous, to be sure, like the moment you tell a prospective boss that your only fault is working too hard. But Palin? She says nothing to address Ifill’s question in the entire 90 seconds of vaguely patriotic gobbledygook that follow (though somewhere in there Ronald Reagan makes an appearance, along with the shining city on the hill too, though, also). In other words, when directly asked to talk about any imperfections in her character or record, she ignores the question. Given George Bush’s well-established aversion to introspection, shouldn’t her handlers have coached her to have some kind of response prepared for this utterly foreseeable question? Or is obliviously high self-regard now considered a positive quality in a leader?
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We waited the whole night for her to mention Runner's World or mispronounce Ahmadinejad, and it didn't happen. The best we got was "nucular" and a few botched names. So, we have to admit that on the most important count she acquitted herself. Whether she won or lost the debate, she is no longer an embarrassment to the McCain campaign. Here are the few reasons I think she didn't mess up:
1. No follow-ups. All of her worst moments have come after an interviewer asked a follow-up question, even a gentle one: Can you name another Supreme Court case you disagree with? Can you name some specific media you read? Can you give an example of legislation where John McCain has broken with his party? In this debate, she got away with the 90 second speech, and no one asked for specifics.
2. Boring questions. Remember that early Clinton/Obama debate that Stephanopoulos moderated? He asked about all the juicy controversies: the flag pin, the Rev. Wright. Gwen Ifill took the PBS route. She asked a series of high-minded questions that Palin had clearly prepared for. Nothing about her personal life, her embarrassing gaffes, even the culture war standards (except for same-sex partners). She chose never to put anyone on the spot.
3. Biden ignored her. He basically pretended she wasn't there. He directed his answers to John McCain, or Gwen Ifill, but never engaged directly with SP. This allowed her to write her own script with little interruption.
4. Scripted folksiness. Palin has reigned in her combustible authenticity into a few digestible sound bites. She looks directly into the camera and says "a team of maaavericks" or "corruption and greed on Wall Street" or "predator lenders." This is a kind of phony authenticity that translates well on a national stage. The irony is, she now sounds like another Washington cliché—these days, who isn't a "Washingtonn outsider"? But to the "American people," this is a safe form of rebellion.
All night the TV pundits will debate whether she helped the ticket or only her own reputation. I would argue she helped the ticket, if only because it no longer seems scary to vote for them.
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Doggone it, howza 'bout we cancel these next two presidential debates and instead spend those evenings with Sen. O'Biden—Hey, can I call you Joe, too?—and Sarah Palin. Darn right that'd be more fun for Joe Sixpack—that's Mr. Sixpack to you—and for hockey moms across this great nation.
Gov. Palin made no rootin' tootin' sense tonight: Her defense of John McCain's insistence, as recently as two weeks ago, that the fundamentals of the economy were strong was this: "John McCain, in referring to the fundamental of our economy being strong, he was talking to and he was talking about the American work force and the American work force is the greatest in the world, with the ingenuity and the work ethic that is just entrenched in our work force. That's a positive, that's encouragement (wink) and that's what John McCain meant.''
Darned if she didn't answer Biden's charge that McCain had been all for financial deregulation with a big ol' non sequitur about tax cuts: "I'm still on the tax thing.'' Her comment that we have nothing to apologize for as a country was alarming, her tone condescending and her answer on global warming dyslexic: "I'm not one to attribute every activity of man to the change in the climate; there is something to be said for man's activity.'' The Bush phrase blame game -- -- which he popularized post-Katrina -- made a surprise cameo. And the capper might have been when she said "Never again'' in reference not to genocide, but predatory lending practices. Only, you know what? She killed, with her cozy, winking speed-walk around the questions. Oh, and Joe—that is his name, right?—did fine, too, both on the substance and in his demeanor.
When he choked up at the end, talking about the accident in which his first wife and daughter died and his two sons were critically injured, it was in direct response to Palin's suggestion that she has some pretty unique insight into what it's like for families who struggle financially and worry about doing right by their children. So when he said "the notion that somehow as a man I don't know what it's like to raise two kids alone...to have a child you're not sure is going to make it,'' it came across as real, rather than manipulative, while also (and perhaps for all time) trumping her gender card. It would have been nice if she'd found a way to acknowledge his loss, though she couldn't exactly walk over and throw her arms around him. And I doubt that's something they covered in debate prep.
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I'm no cosmetics expert—it's a high-maintenance day if I bother with mascara and face powder—but whoever did Palin's makeup should be fired. That contouring along her cheekbones made her look awful. During the debate, one Slate parent said his daughter noted, "Her face looks like a skull."
The makeup artist credited last year with improving Hillary Clinton's look is probably available.
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Palin was great—at long as she can stick to her script, which this format allowed. Will the vice presidency allow such confines? The presidency? Most important, does she have the knowledge base to be, as they say, a heartbeat away from presidency? She did not prove that because she didn't answer many questions with substance. So hopefully if she gets in the White House, she won't ever have to answer an impromptu question or go off script. Yeah, that seems likely.
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Palin started to disintegrate in the second half. She ran out of talking points and started to get plastic and incoherent on the subject of mavericks. Biden, meanwhile, started strong, briefly slumped a bit—some repetition and exasperation in the middle—but he came back strong. And it was rather moving when he choked up, talking about his first wife and daughter—killed in a car accident—and knowing what it was like to worry your child might not make it.
As far as the gender dynamics go here—I'd say Palin lost, but she lost not because she went all helpless and girly and speechless—she was confident, smooth, tough, etc. She just didn't say much of substance, and she ducked most of Ifill's questions. Biden, meanwhile, was occasionally repetitious and a little wonky, but on the whole he also defied expectations: He was calm, reasonably consise, not visibly patronizing ... and he's the one who cried. Huh.
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Palin recalls a moving moment: "I had a good conversation recently with Henry Kissinger ... and he shared with me his passion for diplomacy."
OMG, he must have really liked her.
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Oooh ... I am impressed. Palin cutely manages to turn her inability to answer Ifill's and Biden's questions into her advantage: She says (and I paraphrase, since this is from memory), "So I may not answer your questions, moderator or Joe, but that's because I am speaking instead to what the AMERICAN PEOPLE want to hear." Do not underestimate her ...
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But wouldn't it be better for all of us if Sarah Palin turned out not to be the third-rate bullshit artist she's been taken for? The main reason I'd take no pleasure in seeing her flail around tonight is that she could very well wind up in the Oval Office. So, I'd just as soon discover she's a woman of great depth and vision, too nuanced in her thinking and respectful of precedent to dismiss Supreme Court decisions on the fly.
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I agree it would be terrible if Sarah Palin, despite being an avid reader of newspapers, really couldn't name a single Supreme Court case besides Roe with which she disagreed.
But what if she's bluffing?
The woman vehemently criticizing Exxon v. Baker in this footage bares a striking resemblance to Palin and is, in fact, the Alaskan governor herself. So if Palin chokes tonight and garners pity from the audience, does that mean she's remarkably forgetful, an amnesiac, or, as the prevailing theory suggests, entirely conscious of her sympathy-vote potential?
Perhaps it is more likely that Palin is choosing not to mention this case to stay on message. In the case of Exxon v. Baker, Palin was pro-plaintiff and ran up against the Republican stance on trial lawyers and "frivolous lawsuits that threaten jobs across America." Either way, she seems to be better at manipulating her audience than we give her credit for. I'm beginning to think that win or lose tonight, Palin will still walk away the victor.
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On Monday, there was an outrage when Politico's Jonathan Martin reported that the Obama campaign was seeking a rape victim for an ad. Apparently, the campaign had contacted Kiersten Stewart (Martin misspelled her name as Steward) with the Family Violence Prevention Fund to help them find a victim for an ad relating to rape. According to the e-mail obtained by Politico, Stewart was unsure of the specifics regarding the ad.
At first, this made me queasy, too. A spokeswoman for rape? But then I thought about it. Why is this any different than using Gianna Jessen, an abortion survivor, to do an attack ad on Obama's position on the Born Alive Infant Protection Act in Illinois? Or using a POW who served with McCain to make an ad saying that he is unfit to lead?
Newsrooms have an ongoing debate about whether to name rape victims. The names are public record, but out of either respect or discomfort, newspapers decline to name them. But in the case of a political ad, the woman has a say in the matter. If the Obama campaign finds a woman to speak in its ad, she would have volunteered. If she wants to let herself be used this way, then who's to stop her? Many feminists have argued, after all, that shielding rape victims is misplaced chivalry and only compounds the shame.
The other difference here is that most of the testimonial ads are put out by independent groups, not by a political party or candidate. Jessen's ad was created by a group whose sole purpose is to reveal Obama's support of infanticide. No doubt this is something Jessen approves of—she's involved with the group. In Obama's case, he is asking a rape victim to talk about just one issue on his platform. Who knows if she supports all, or even most of, his positions. Planned Parenthood aired an ad today featuring a rape victim. There was no similar reaction. In Obama's case, the woman ends up speaking about rape but really serves as a spokesperson for Obama's campaign. In the Planned Parenthood situation, the woman talks about rape, but her speech doesn't have the same endorsement quality.
Obama's campaign wasn't wrong in seeking a rape victim for a political ad, but it does feel a little like exploitation. Then again, if she volunteered, no harm, no foul.
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Dana, I kind of agree with you but for different reasons: I don't have much sympathy for Palin, cringe as I might through those interviews at her ignorance on some major issues, simply because I don't think she shows much sympathy for other victims in her political views. I can never get past her providing no exception for victims of rape and incest in cases of abortion. A rape victim is supposed to bear the child of a violent crime against herself because she failed to fight hard enough to ward her aggressor off or get him to wear a condom? That's a pretty unsympathetic message to women, I think. And if Palin is going to live by that kind of sympathy sword, she does risk dying by it.
That said, I don't like to engage in too much schadenfreude because, well, I think it's uncharitable, and I believe it comes back to haunt you. It's partly why I've quelled my outrage at the McCain camp's nastiness—ever since the sneering, community organizer-mocking speeches of Guiliani and Palin at the GOP Convention, I've been dying to see the Democrats hit back as low below the belt as they were being punched—the jeering at helping laid-off people recoup their lives. (Call me a bleeding-heart liberal, but I think it rather mean-spirited to mock someone for trying to help people who'd lost their livelihoods, which is essentially everything. I bet none of those laughing had ever been laid off.) But they haven't as much as they could have, and I think it's actually paying off. Obama—at least currently—isn't the one imploding. There's still time left in this campaign; that all might change. But it's nice to see that taking a bit of the high road does actually turn out to pay off at times.
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Sarah,
It's been a heck of a month, hasn't it? When John McCain introduced you to the nation, I was immensely excited. You were great at the convention. You're a hit with the base. But I've got to fess up, you're making me uneasy.
It's not the easiest thing to admit. Liberal bloggers have spread falsehoods about you, and some in the media have been questioning you since Day 1. The vicious things people have said about you hit me personally for some reason, and I don't want to dignify them. But the interviews speak for themselves. I don't know what happened between the time you spoke at the convention and when you sat down with Charlie Gibson. But you've been like a different person.
My colleague Emily Bazelon has a thoughtful piece in Slate today about the agony women feel watching you. Conservative columnist Kathleen Parker wants to like you but thinks you should step down. I'm not going to go that far. At least not yet. (And if I did go that far, I'm not sure what I'd do, because you'd probably have to stumble through the alphabet before I'd want to vote for your opponent.)
I'm imploring you. Please bring your A-game tonight. I don't want you to do well just so you can ward off sympathy votes or pity parties. I want you to do well because there are many conservative women who support you or did support you but are wavering. We don't want feminism to be defined by the left, but if you fail, many are going to see it as a failure for all of us who share your ideology. We relate to you. And sure, whenever someone brings up the point that people want relatable candidates, someone fires back saying that we don't want "average joes" in office, we want someone exceptional. Well, what I think most people want is someone who is at once exceptional and likable. Someone who's talented and hardworking and successful but understands what it's like to fret over retirement funds and putting our kids through college. You've got that potential. God knows we've seen your relatable side. And you must have some exceptionalism in there. How else could you have gotten from the PTA to the governor's mansion?
Here are some tips and some things to keep in mind.
You're debating Sen. Joe Biden. In the past few weeks, he's asked a man in a wheelchair to stand up and reminisced about President FDR giving a televised speech in 1929. How hard can this be?
Everyone is making a huge deal out of the fact that you'd be "one heartbeat away from the presidency" if McCain wins. That's a lot of pressure. Well, Nancy Pelosi is two heartbeats away from the presidency, and if the bailout disaster in the House this week is any indication, she clearly doesn't let the pressure make her slow down and think too much.
I don't know what calms you down in times of stress, or if you have any tricks, like picturing the audience in their underwear. But if you need to, imagine that Gwen Ifill is Sean Hannity. Pretend that Joe Biden is former Gov. Tony Knowles. Do whatever you have to. Some of us are still pulling for you.
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Damn, man, whatever happened to Schadenfreude? Isn’t anyone here going to enjoy seeing Sarah Palin struggle tonight? God knows I can identify with the sympathy angle—I once gave a job talk at Brown that felt, from my end, a lot like that Katie Couric interview – but in no way does that translate into hoping she does well enough to redeem herself in the debate, in order to somehow represent on behalf of women in general. On the contrary: I’m looking forward to watching Palin flail (and come on, people, in an unscripted and explicitly polemical format she’s going to flail like an Alaska salmon on the dock.) To me, watching her incompetence get exposed is like payback for the last eight years of staring at a naked, and thoroughly unattractive, emperor. And you know what? I was a lot more qualified for that Brown job than Palin is for VP, but I still wasn’t the best candidate, and my prospective employers deserved to find that out.
I think both compassionate people like the rest of you and spiteful harpies like myself can agree that cutting Palin extra slack – whether because of her gender or her supposed persecution at the hands of “the press” – is a profoundly unfeminist thing to do. And while I agree that strategically, Biden will be wise to tiptoe around Palin’s gender (avoiding the appearance of condescension, etc.), I look forward to a brave post-feminist world in which, one day, the debate partners of lightweights like Palin will be at liberty to mop the floor with said lightweights—not because they’re women (or men), but because they’re arrogant fools.
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Dahlia, if Palin tanks tonight, then I think you're right. She won't cash in the victim card at the ballot box. But in the more likely event that she exceeds ever-falling expectations, then she gets the benefit both of Hanna's deserving-of-sympathy image and comeback kid redemption. Isn't that the persona we tend to love best--perky candidate/boxer with gumption who looks like she's down for the count, then pulls it out? A much better end to the Palin Lifetime series. And enough to shore up those sliding poll numbers?
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Hanna, your nightmare is my nightmare but not because I fear it will affect the outcome of the election. I fear for what it says about the power of playing the victim, and how far we can push it before we’ve lost more than we have gained.
Of course Sarah Palin will play the victim card tonight. Best as I can tell, it’s the only card she’s played since her name was announced: The perky victim, relentlessly cheerful in the face of conspiracies too numerous to name. So let’s stipulate that going into the debates Palin is already the victim of “media elites” and the “Washington establishment.” She is a victim of the bloodthirsty Alaska legislature. She is a victim of a media pile-on, resulting in her near media blackout, while simultaneously (if mysteriously) being a victim of media “censorship.” Palin enters tonight’s debate a victim of sexism; elitism; gotcha-ism; small-town-ism. And well in advance of the debate she is also a victim of Gwen Ifill’s in-the-tank-ism.
But even if you and Emily and Judith Warner are right that nobody with an ounce of compassion can enjoy witnessing Palin’s public embarrassment, I can’t see how that translates into votes. Even if it’s true that “the image of Palin as victim, deserving of sympathy, will emerge clearly before the nation tonight,” I’m not sure that means much more than a lot of Americans who will vote for Obama while feeling really bad for Sarah Palin. I don’t know that in light of the serious crises voters are facing, pity will achieve more for Gov. Palin than just pity. Maybe I am misreading the lesson of all the women who were galvanized by the attacks on Hillary Clinton. But while I think sympathy for the sexism with which Clinton was treated represented some of that support, most of those women also saw her as the best possible candidate for office, being cruelly held back for her gender. New polls show that Palin is widely seen as too inexperienced to be taken seriously and apparently women agree with that assessment. They seem to increasingly find it hard to attribute Palin’s collapse to gender alone or to rally behind her for that reason. Americans are feeling badly victimized right now and I’m not sure that this will lead them to rally behind another victim. They will buy Palin’s memoir. They will watch her movie once it’s turned into a Lifetime miniseries. They—and we—will admire her political skills. But will they put her in Dick Cheney’s chair because she’s been treated badly? God I hope not.
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Kathleen Parker says her fellow conservative Sarah Palin has exhausted her cringe reflex, and I hear her on that. Mine has been overtaxed for years. Remember the presidential debate for which some malevolent (or high, maybe?) makeup artist painted Al Gore orange? In the privacy of my living room, I listened to most of that one with my sweatshirt pulled up over my eyes because it was too painful to watch. At the first presidential debate in '04, in Miami, I even had to look away from George W., about whom I am not aware of ever having had an admiring thought, because watching him flounder around babbling that being president, well, "it's hard work ... it's hard work ... it's hard work'' just felt cruel. So am I hoping that both Palin and Joe Biden do well enough tonight that I won't have to avert my eyes? No, because my comfort level isn't the point; their competence is. No, because even the most lopsided debate can help the perceived loser more than the supposed winner; there are no straight lines between cause and effect in politics, which I have to admit is part of the attraction, warped as that may be. No, because women have the same right to be underprepared that men have always had. And no, because voters make me even more nervous than candidates do, so whatever happens tonight is still just the prelims.
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... about tonight's debate, and it looks like this. Emily, after reading about your efforts to tamp down the sisterly sympathy for Palin, and then reading about Judith Warner's sudden wave of affection for her ("I saw a woman fully aware that she was out of her league, scared out of her wits, hanging on for dear life"), it came to me clearly. One month ago, Palin sank her teeth into the national scene. She gave a speech that electrified some and terrified others. She was bold and sexy and took on enemies without anyone's help. Women could love her or love to hate her but the furthest thing from their minds was pity.
Now, slowly, slowly, they have sapped her mojo. Who is they? Charlie Gibson, Barack Obama, Katie Couric, us, the president of Harvard, Stephen Breyer—the whole cabal. Joe Biden might behave perfectly tonight—reign in his babalicious comments, his condescension, his pomposity, follow all the Dahlia rules—and still he won't prevent this new image of Palin forming: the new girl who is trying her best but stumbling and then getting mercilessly teased. After all, anyone who does not torture kittens for fun can not help but feel sorry for Palin as she fails to answer the question about other Supreme Court decisions she disagrees with—truly one of the most painful few seconds of television ever.
Even Couric tried to keep her voice as gentle as possible in the follow up—"Can you think of any?" she purred. But still, the new Couric is not so popular. The Couric people—and especially women—adored is the old one, the one who would have defended a woman who had dared to take on the villains of her small town and then been robbed of her glory. Who cares if her favorite philosopher is a columnist from Runner's World? Who cares if she ditched one of her colleges because it was raining too much? The bottom line in the wide world of ex-Couric and Oprah voters is, she's one of the sisters, and she needs our help.
I realize none of my worries are borne out by the poll numbers. The Palin effect has faded, McCain is down in the polls, etc. But images take a while to jell. And my fear is, the image of Palin as victim, deserving of sympathy, will emerge clearly before the nation tonight.
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A lot of liberal bloggers are crowing this morning about Sarah Palin's concession to Katie Couric that the Constitution protects a right to privacy. I don't think that's nearly the monster gotcha they seem to believe. Couric asked "Do you think there's an inherent right to privacy in the Constitution?" Palin responded "I do." Chief Justice John Roberts, at his confirmation hearings, also agreed that the constitution protects a right to privacy. So did Justice Samuel Alito. (And in strikingly similar language!!!) What Palin said to Couric is hardly a dramatic departure from that line. Nor does it open the door to any kind of wobbliness on choice (see also, Roberts and Alito). That said, I can't agree with Ann Althouse that Palin handled the court questions with any real degree of skill. I found the segment to be yet another painful instance of the Palin method-acting approach to interviews: rote repetition of blurry talking points, fused with blurry confusion over issues to which she has not given any kind of serious thought. Nevertheless, I don't expect Palin to collapse in a verbless heap at tonight's debate the way she has done for Couric. The McCain campaign has already set up moderator Gwen Ifill as a "hater." So long as Palin can keep her cue cards straight and twinkle intermittently on cue, she'll likely battle Joe Biden to a draw.
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Slate editors and XX Factor bloggers Emily Bazelon and Dahlia Lithwick will be chatting on Washingtonpost.com this afternoon at 3:30 ET. They will be outlining what Joe Biden and Sarah Palin each need to do to succeed in tonight's vice-presidential debate.
Emily has an article in Slate today that discusses how watching Palin's interviews is agonizing for women. Dahlia has written about how Joe Biden can debate Palin and win.
Send them your questions about tonight's debate.
Update, 5:21 p.m.: Here's the transcript. Thanks for your questions!
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Sarah Palin striking out on Supreme Court cases she doesn't like, other than the old faithful Roe v. Wade, is painful television. Joe Biden's answers to the same set of questions from Katie Couric seemed odd for a different reason. Biden said he supports Roe, “Because I think it’s as close to a consensus that can exist in a society as heterogeneous as ours.” Call Roe brave if you want, call it essential for women, call it a victory for equal rights—but a consensus? Given how divisive abortion politics have proved to be, that seems like wishful bordering on magical thinking. Biden defends the trimester-by-trimester structure of Roe, pointing out that it allows for progressively more government regulation. And he ends on, "not consensus, but as close as it's going to get." That's a little better, I guess.
I give Biden points for panning the Supreme Court's 2000 decision to strike down part of the Violence Against Women Act. Biden acknowledges that he wrote the law and had a personal interest in the ruling. It does stand as an unfortunate high water mark of the court's federalist revolt. Which has since lost its moxie.