Beware, all ye’ Palin mockers. We (at least, the American public) may be succumbing to the most serious case of expectations management ever devised. Don't fall for it - we need a VP who is ready to be Prez - not one who can mouth overly rehearsed answers (or who can dress a moose).
No one, I mean no one, could perform as poorly in a debate as we are being led to believe Sarah Palin will perform. I mean, come on, she’ll be able to answer some questions. They don’t have to be good answers, just have to be spoken in full(ish) sentences and be internally consistent – when she tells us the earth is flat in one sentence, she can’t sat it’s round in the next.
Debate questions themselves are rarely surprises. Even if they aren’t leaked, or repeated from prior debates, most of them should be easily anticipated. Ones that are not anticipated are usually not far off, or could be channeled into a rehearsed answer. Even if the moderator follows up a bit ("OK, but what I specifically asked was how your economic plan differs from your opponents"), if Palin simply recites a rehearsed answer to a different question, but it seems related (and coherent – remember, it’s rehearsed), then a lot of people will accept it.
In the first debate, Obama had more "room to grow" than McCain, in part because the McCain camp has been trying to paint Obama as not-ready-for-prime-time. Obviously, he is more than ready (and more ready than McCain), but all he had to do was demonstrate he wasn’t the scary, naïve, inexperienced politician that McCain portrayed (even in the debate).
In this debate, Palin – at least, now – has more "room to grow." She has come across so poorly recently, that she need only utter a few internally-coherent sentences (that could be factually way off base, but that won’t matter to many voters), and she’ll look good by comparison to the expectation.
So, please, let’s not facilitate the gaming of the expectations. It’s not that she needs to outperform the bumbling Couric interview version of herself – she needs to prove that she’s ready to step in as President. Anything less is unacceptable.