Biden v. Palin (III)
Sarah Palin plans to go on the attack in tonight’s debate, hitting Joe Biden for what she will call his foreign policy blunders [bold mine-DL] and penchant for adopting liberal positions on taxes and other issues, according to campaign officials involved in prepping her for tonight’s showdown.
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Highlight past Biden foreign-policy positions as a way to undermine his core strength.
“He’s a celebrated foreign policy expert, but he has been wrong … dating back to the Reagan administration,” the official said. “There are opportunities there for her to jump in.” ~The Politico
I suppose you have to attack your opponent in a debate of this kind, but this seems like awfully treacherous ground for Palin. The meme that Biden has been wrong on everything for his entire career has the remarkable virtue of being pretty close to the truth give or take a couple things, but what does that mean for McCain/Palin? Well, let’s review. Biden supported intervening in Yugoslavia in both Bosnia and Kosovo, and McCain…agreed with Biden. You can take the view that these were necessary interventions, which is wrong, but you are then compelled to give Biden credit for working alongside your running mate in pursuing these policies.
McCain supported the invasion of Iraq in 2003, as did Biden. Biden supports intervening in Darfur–what does McCain think about this? Oh, right, he supports doing some form of that, too. Good luck to Palin if the conversation turns to Darfur, since Biden has been an outspoken advocate of armed intervention there and will run rings around her. On Russia, Georgia and NATO expansion, Biden is essentially in agreement with McCain minus the threats of kicking the Russians out of the G-8. If the goal is to show Biden’s poor judgement, in almost every instance this will highlight all of the times when Biden and McCain held the same positions in the past, so this criticism bounces back off of Biden and hits McCain.
That means that the Palin critique of Biden will be reduced to blathering about the “surge,” which has been the standard fare of the McCain campaign for over a year and a half now. As Biden keeps saying, the “surge” is now over, so now what is the McCain/Palin plan? She won’t have an answer, because McCain doesn’t have an answer. Exploiting past disagreements between nominees opens Palin up to some attacks as well. I’m not sure whether Biden will bring up the report of Palin supporting an exit strategy, but if he does it will be interesting to hear her explain why she wants an exit strategy but thinks Obama is irresponsible for having an exit strategy. This is not going to go well for her.
Update: David Noon and Jim Pinkerton discuss the debate at bloggingheads. Noon, who lives in Juneau, argues that Palin is known to be not very strong on most issues even as governor. He added that her gubernatorial debate performances were not terribly good, but that her rivals’ performances weren’t very good, either.
I think that it’s probably unwise on other fronts as well. Whatever one thinks of Biden, and whatever points Palin scores against him, he will, unlike Palin, never be a drag on the ticket. This debate really isn’t about Biden. From the perspective of the McCain camp, it should be about (1) attacking Obama, and (2) dispelling the impression that Palin is a joke. The attack Biden strategy achieves neither goal, and, as you say, risks hurting her with regard to the second goal.
Moreover, assuming that you are correct that the surge is the only even remotely effective line of attack, given the fact that Biden has usually supported the same foriegn policies as McCain, I’m wondering how the McCain camp thinks that Palin is going to be able to do effectively what McCain himself didn’t. The surge stuff went nowhere with Obama.
Finally, I’m curious why the McCain camp seems to be puffing up expectations of Palin’s performance. Even if prep really is going well, one would think that they would be trying to keep expectations low at this point. Maybe it’s a way of building up her confidence?
I agree, Going after Biden seems wrongheaded. Biden knows his role: whack McCain hard and repeatedly. All while Palin…carps about Biden? Ummm…Okay. Of course, knowing Joe, the Reps may be hoping to goad him into snarling back, which probably won’t play well. Maybe that’s the goal?
At the same time, I’m not sure that an attack strategy of some type isn’t her best option at this point. It will fire up the base, and may obscure some of her more significant deficiencies.
But that doesn’t make it a GOOD strategy, only making the best of bad circumstances. And I still find it curious that she plans to attack Biden as opposed to Obama. Eh, maybe that’s just a head fake, and she’ll spend the debate attacking Obama.
Yeah, the more that I think about it, it’s a head fake. Josh Marshall has the most persuasive speculation:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/221517.php
Which is also somewhat consistent with DaveA’s take. It’s a bit of a Hail Mary pass, but then, that’s been the MO of the McCain campaign for weeks now.
I would venture that the most likely critique would be Biden’s 3-state partition plan for Iraq. Not only is it easily criticized, but Biden was also pushing it as a Plan B for the surge, making it an easy point of contrast with a perceived McCain strength.
The partition plan can be criticized, but can she make the argument criticizing it? I would agree that partition schemes were not good alternatives, but I wonder whether she could articulate why.
I’m sure you’re right, but lucky for her, I suspect she’ll play better with viewers by saying that Biden is wrong in folksy language than cogently explaining why he is.
It’s crucial for Biden to plug his logorrhea and avoid condescension. Both tall orders for the guy, but maybe he can do it
If he’s smart, he’ll go after McCain and hope that Palin seems shallow, without directly attacking her.