(first diary, please be kind...)
I know this might come off to some as "concern trolling" but I've got some major concerns about this Thursday's debate. In fact, this debate worries the heck out of me. I don't think anyone is really thinking that Joe Biden is going to do anything other than wipe the floor with Sarah Palin. And, I don't think that expectation is entirely unreasonable given the circumstances and her performances (and the notable lack thereof) in the media over the last couple of weeks. But, it sets up two BIG problems for Sen. Biden and the Obama campaign, which I will explain in a moment.
I'll start by telling a story. Boxing fans, even casual ones, might remember a fighter active in the 60s and 70s named Chuck "The Bayonne Bleeder" Wepner. Chuck Wepner was known as being a "tomato can", the kind of boxer that was reasonably decent against mediocre opponents and could hold his own, but pretty regularly got whipped by real contenders. That is, until a fight in 1975 against Muhammad Ali. Ali was, even then, a legend - a fighter so dominant, so superior that no one expected much of Chuck Wepner going into that fight.
No one really remembers that Chuck Wepner came out of that fight an utter mess, with a broken nose, or a broken cheekbone, or with a few dozen stitches in his face. What boxing fans do remember from that fight was that in the ninth round, Chuck Wepner landed one good solid punch and left the great Ali flat on his behind counting ceiling lights, and ended up going toe-to-toe for the full 15 rounds with the greatest boxer of his generation. Wepner lost by any reasonable measure, but the expectations were so low for him that it was seen by most as a victory for him anyway. One footnote from that fight was that Wepner's performance inspired a then-unknown actor and screenwriter to create what is now the most famous fictional boxer in history, Rocky Balboa.
The reason I'm concerned here is that I think Sarah Palin is the 2008 Presidential Election's Chuck Wepner. The expectations bar has been set so low for Gov. Palin that all she really needs to do to be seen as a winner on Thursday is to not sound incredibly stupid. She doesn't need to score any points, or say anything substantial - all she really needs to do is show up and not fall flat on her face. If Gov. Palin succeeds in doing those things, the debate will be remembered by many as a victory for her.
There is another scenario for Thursday's debate, and this is the one that I'm really worried about. I'm not too sure Sen. Biden will be able to hold back out there, which would then be portrayed in the media as him having been "mean" to Gov. Palin. Joe Biden is a brilliant man, but the problem here is that he doesn't really have the nuance or magnanimity that Barack Obama has (as seen with Sen. Obama's "that's a tough one" comment when Sen. McCain stumbled over the name Ahmedinejad during last Friday's Presidential debate). I'm really worried that Joe Biden is going to go out there and prove what we all know: that he's smarter, and more experienced, and more Presidential, and do what we all expect him to do, and lose anyway on a wave of public sympathy which will undoubtedly be pushed along by the right-wing media machine.
So, we have 2 likely scenarios. The first is that Biden holds back and Sarah Palin doesn't look incredibly awful, which is a victory for the McCain/Palin camp. The second is that Biden utterly crushes her and she gets a lot of public sympathy as a result, which is a victory for the McCain/Palin camp. It's counterintuitive, but I don't think there is a truly plausible scenario in which Obama and Biden don't end up actually losing some polling points from the VP debate this week.