As everyone knows by now Gov. Sarah Palin's third interview of the general election has been granted to Katie Couric, who will be traveling with her as part of the interview process. The interview will be aired September 29 and 30. Like the previous interviews with Charlie Gibson and Sean Hannity, the Couric interview is carefully scripted to reinforce the image the McCain/Palin campaign is trying to craft.
This ain't gonna happen. Katie Couric will lay the wood on Governor Palin, not as a partisan but as a professional, and it will be glorious.
With Gibson it half worked. Gibson treated Palin with all the deference the campaign was looking for, and while she still managed to show her ignorance on a number of key topics, the fact of the interview itself, and the way in which the campaign managed to get the media to play to its tune, set the stage for interviews to follow and lent to her image at least some of the gravitas they were looking for.
With Hannity, of course, it was exactly as expected: an infomercial. Nobody can seriously call that an interview, but it does serve the function of extended free advertising on a national cable network. Now they are following these two choices with Katie Couric, fully expecting that her perky morning show personality -- her greatest success -- will help humanize Gov. Palen, bringing disaffected Clinton-supporting women into the fold in just the way the hoped-for Oprah interview was intended.
First, the expectations. Some of the press coverage results is already showing sexism, not directed against Palin, but against the Couric/Palin pairing:
Oh, goodie. Maybe they can talk about shopping the resale shops for those spiffy campaign suits, how to get the Palin beehive, what color lipstick looks best on pit bull leaders and what's up with the tanning bed
the softening of expectations has only been accentuated by Couric's taking over the CBS evening news, where ratings have sagged.
But the truth is that Couric is historically an excellent interviewer, and has been getting tougher interviews than Palin for the last 20 years. Whatever one thinks of Couric's other skills as a journalist, her ability to get people to open up in unexpected ways is at the core of her success.
Palin's motivation. I think she will need to accomplish several things in this interview to be successful. First and foremost, she needs to increase her identification with her core swing demographic: Clinton supporters, particularly women, who are drawn in by her story and the force of her personality. This is where the putative Oprah interview, McCain's appearance on The View, and the reputed ad buys on daytime television, are all targeted. Next, she will try to guide the interview in a particular direction to show and area of expertise. My guess is she'll have some training for the interview in one area -- say, the economy -- try to move the conversation in that direction so that there is little time for other areas that are unexpected. Finally I think she'll try to use that area to hammer on Obama, driving a couple of talking points repeating the McCain camp's insults.
What Couric will do. The last thing Couric needs to do is show that she is a likable person. What she needs to show is that people should be watching the CBS evening news, and that she is a credible heir to Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather. To the extent that she 'bonds' with Palin over insubstantial issues, as some are expecting, I think that would just be softening Palin up the hard questions that follow. It will be interesting to see if Palin succeeds in moving interview in the direction of her choosing. Personally, I doubt it, because I think Couric is way too skillful to lose control of the interview.
In a very real way, each of them is trying to show that they are up for the job. But Couric will be doing the part of the job that she does very, very, well. And she will use that strength to show that she deserves to host what used to be the standard-bearer of television news. In this, I have no doubt that Couric is much better at her job conducting interviews than Palin is at hers giving them.
Palin still hasn't had a normal press meeting, but I think this supposedly soft interview is going to be a doozy, and I look forward to Couric going womano-a-womano with Gov. Palin.