Let's see. McCain's goal in the first presidential debate was to make Obama look like a naive, dangerous, inexperienced dilettante who was completely out of his league. Well that was stupid of them. Because all Obama had to do was look Presidential, speak confidently and comfortably and assuredly of a whole host of issues, and voila, Obama wins the debate. The McCain campaign really misfired on the expectations game - they should have been promoting the fact that obviously Obama would look good and confident, but, you know, can you trust anything he says? As it was, Obama cleared the bar, McCain looked like an angry old man, and now we see Obama climbing in the polls. The same stupid stupidness is manifesting again in the McCain camp and they are setting themselves up for such a spectacular blowblack of negative energy I can't believe they haven't figured this out yet...
What has been the mantra of the McCain/Palin camp the last few days? That poor widdle Sarah Palin has been beaten up by the big mean press, that the "Obama-Biden" Democrats have slandered her and her family's good name, and that Joe Biden is a gaffe-a-minute buffoon. Oh my. They are setting themselves up for such an epic fail. Sarah Palin will be hated - absolutely despised - by 60% of the country tomorrow because their strategy is, get this: attack Joe Biden. Because nothing shows the big media picking on a poor helpless rube like relentlessly attacking your opponent (??).
The way I see it, here's how it will go - Gwen Ifill will be a very average moderator. No big drama there. Joe Biden will succinctly answer the questions, often drawing the answers back to John McCain. Most importantly, his message will often be very positive - a turn back to that old Obama "we're all in this together" rhetoric of the primaries. And what will Sarah Palin be doing? Lobbing missiles at Biden, ridiculing Obama, and probably throwing a few barbs in there about the press. And the people at home, who have only heard about her in newspapers and the TV will think to themselves, "God what an absolute jerkface." Because they won't see Biden attacking Palin. They won't see Ifill being biased against Palin. They'll just see a very calm, knowledgeable and, yes, likeable guy speaking eloquently and with great depth about all sorts of issues. And then, on the other side of the stage, they will see a woman who cannot directly or deeply answer a question being defensive, sarcastic, mean, and petulant.
Their little gambit is going to fail. So bad. And who knows, maybe in the process she'll throw out a few zingers and take Biden and Obama down a peg or two. But in the grand scheme of things, if she goes on the attack against Joe Biden, and he smiles through the crap and doesn't engage in her nonsense, then the person Palin is going to hurt the most is going to be Sarah Palin. You think her negative rating is high now? Just wait until the beginning of next week.
As Biden said after the RNC, she's like the kid in class, you come in with a new shirt that your Dad worked so hard to be able to pay for, you come in wearing your new shirt, you're so proud of it, and Sarah Palin is the kid who goes, "Hey, that's a nice shirt. It's a hand me down?"