I know there's been a lot of hand wringing over the past few days about the Palin trap. The Republicans, goes the theory, decided to dig themselves a huge hole in the polls just so they could have a good media narrative on October 2. Hey if that's their strategy, I'll take it.
When I was in college, I was on a softball team that regularly lost games by 20 runs or more. Our stated strategy was that we were lulling our foes into a false sense of confidence and then we'd pounce. We never quite got to stage 2.
Even if you think that this is a good strategy for the McCain camp, the debate tonight isn't only about exceeding expectations; it's about the narrative that has built. People think that Palin is unqualified for the position, having only memorized some buzzwords that she doesn't quite understand. As a result, the debate is a bit of a lose/lose for her.
The format means that doing well will just be a successful spewing of talking points that doesn't show any underlying understanding of the issues involved. However, if she makes a mistake, that will be all over the press. People are looking for an excuse to build another example of Palin messing up. Get 20 questions right but mess up 5 and guess what will make the rounds tomorrow? As if that wasn't bad enough, she has the misfortune of going against Biden.
Watch this video again. Look how Biden comes across as an expert especially when compared to Palin. Biden's competence will make talking points look less impressive.
Now normally, there would be a chance for Palin to win the personality race even if she doesn't win on details, but the narrative already exists. This is the one time where the wonkiness of the Democrats is really going to help. Palin needs to show that she's Biden's equal - or at least close - and the format isn't going to really let her do it. Charm works best when people are predisposed to like the candidate but the field is tilted against Palin.
What's the upside for Palin? The best case scenario for her is that she doesn't make any mistakes at all, does reasonably well, comes up with a few good lines, and is completely off the news by tomorrow afternoon as the House debates the rescue plan. The rescue plan will dominate the weekend and then we have the Town Halls on Tuesday. Since she still won't be trusted to talk to the media, so the detractors will be able to frame her image.
Palin needs a grand slam to just get herself back to where she should be as a do no harm VP. Both the debate format and the preconceptions people have are going to make that hard. She might be able to stop the bleeding, but I really don't see how she turns things around with this.
...and yes, I was knocking on wood the whole time I was typing this...