Three weeks or so ago it looked like the contest would be fought on John McCain’s chosen territory. Russia’s invasion of Georgia had put national security up in lights. ~Philip Stephens

I have absolutely no idea why anyone would believe this.  During the fighting in Georgia, McCain continued to trail, as he did until his brief convention/Palin bump, and only a very small part of the public considers foreign policy questions a top priority.  It’s true that Lehman’s bankruptcy, Paulson’s proposal and McCain’s utterly ridiculous handling of the entire situation combined to sabotage his campaign, but before 9/15 the campaign was not going to be fought on McCain’s turf.  The public was already overwhelmingly focused on economic matters, which is why the Republican convention seemed at times more like a convention of oil company employees, so enthusiastically and obsessively did they talk about drilling.  Besides being a P.R. stunt, a desperate bid to generate enthusiasm for a moribund campaign and the default choice once Lieberman was ruled out, selecting Palin was clearly aimed at emphasizing the GOP’s domestic drilling preoccupation, which had seemed to be the only issue where Republicans had enjoyed any advantage all year.  As for national security, one of the main criticisms of the Palin selection even by those generally on the right was that choosing Palin had pushed national security to the back burner, which matched up with the public’s own priorities.  Indeed, Iraq had receded from the campaign almost entirely.  Were it not for McCain’s bizarre obsession with Georgia, Russian actions would scarcely have registered in our election.  The trouble that McCain had after 9/15 was that he had embraced drilling (and tax cuts) as more or less the entirety of his economic message, and had made it very clear that he was fighting the election on an economic platform of sorts.  When the financial crisis worsened and he flailed around attempting to look relevant, his main economic themes were pushed to the side and his bumbling in his response to the crisis reinforced the impression that he had no idea what he was doing or what he was talking about.  The point is that national security was not going to be at the center of the campaign.  Indeed, one of the reasons why Obama was widely regarded as the winner last week was that most viewers were not particularly concerned with McCain’s supposed areas of expertise.  McCain had already acknowledged that in the weeks prior to 9/15, and the Palin pick made that even more clear.  So the crisis did notn upend the race, but gave added strength to the ticket that had been leading for essentially the entire summer.

On to more important things.  William Isaac, chairman of the FDIC in Reagan’s first term, writes in Forbes on the bailout:

The Senate bill is an irresponsible raid on taxpayer money to benefit a handful of institutions and wealthy individuals we can’t even identify (but many of which will likely be outside the U.S. the way the bill is written).

Those who say the taxpayers won’t lose money on the program are not being truthful. There is nothing in that bill we can’t live without. It will do next to nothing to solve the problems in our financial system and economy (although it might make the markets feel good in the short run).

My worst nightmare is that the bailout bill will not do any good, and we will not have enough dry powder to do the things we really need to do to help the people who are hurting in this economy and to stimulate economic growth.

I truly hope that the 228 heroes in the House will stand firm one more time and will be joined by more of their colleagues. In my judgment, the immediate financial crisis can be calmed by regulatory actions. Congress should be focused on what it can do to help the people who need help in this crisis and on coming up with creative ways to stimulate the economy.

It is unlikely that the House will reject the bill this time, and the leadership will not bring it to a vote unless it is absolutely certain that it will pass, but nothing has changed since Monday that makes this bill any less dreadful than it was at the start of the week.  Arguably the “sweeteners” added to it to ease the passage through the Senate have made it a substantively worse bill than it was.

Update: Hensarling repeated his opposition to the bill on the floor, saying, “There is a better way.”

Conor Friedersdorf notes the irony that Palin’s fans are thrilling over a single appearance on television (just as they thrilled to her earlier convention speech when it was broadcast on television), even though their main charge against him was that he put too much store by her appearances on television when making his claim that she was unqualified.  Of course, this charge, which has also been directed against Rod and Ross for their criticisms, is ridiculous on its face.  Now we are supposed to believe that after one debate outing Palin has changed her image, but what this means is that it is only a superficial change of this kind that was possible and confirms that no substantive improvement has occurred.  The view that her critics are judging her hastily and superficially is quite pervasive, though, so it needs to be put to rest once and for all.  Most of Palin’s conservative critics, including Conor, Rod and Ross, are fundamentally sympathetic to what she was supposed to represent on the ticket.  They very much wished she could have risen to the occasion and I think to some degree they were all rooting for her to succeed.  Then she failed, and they could not simply pretend that this had not happened.  The word that was used to describe Palin early on was promising, and so she was, and then the appropriate word to describe her later was disappointing, because it was inescapable that she was also that. 

The counterargument against them is essentially this: 1) her sympathetic critics have put too much store by superficial television appearances (as opposed to deeply serious convention speeches!) and 2) they have ignored her “record of accomplishment.”  What is amazing is that the debate last night, which supposedly vindicates Palin fans, confirmedthat the best she can muster are heavily scripted, cliche-ridden, talking point-rich performances with the occasional zinger thrown in.  The debate format was deliberately crafted by the campaign to ensure that her weaknesses in handling challenging questions and follow-up questions, which I noted earlier, were concealed.  Even so, she evaded many questions (Politicocounted ten) and turned to her rehearsed attacks at random moments.  She cannot be blamed for not knowing that civilian casualties from NATO airstrikes have been a major political problem in the Afghan war or that this reliance on air power stems directly from our lack of ground forces in the country, because I’m sure her handlers were never going to brief her on the existence of civilian casualties in a war zone.  For the Scheunemanns and Bieguns of the world, these casualties either don’t exist or are irrelevant.  Regardless, her clear lack of knowledge about a critical detail concerning one of the two combat theaters where American soldiers are fighting today would, were she not a Republican, be considered among conservatives automatically disqualifying and a cause for ridicule from now until eternity.  Obviously, had Biden made an error of this magnitude he would be attacked as unfit–and rightly so.  It can be no less disqualifying with Palin.

Now let’s go back and revisit her record that makes her fans so proud.  She left Wasilla under a staggering debt of $20 million and badly mishandled the construction of the athletic facility that the city took on this debt to build.  Her main accomplishments in her short tenure as governor have been to raise taxes on oil companies, which was more likely to discourage development and thus directly contradicted her fantastical claim of facilitating chimerical energy independence, and to negotiate a pipeline that cannot be built without the cooperation of the same oil companies that she has deliberately antagonized.  Under her administration Alaska now takes fewer federal dollars for earmark projects than under Murkowski, but it is still the highest per capita recipient of earmarked funds in the country.  She “killed” the so-called Bridge to Nowhere after she had supported it during her campaign and only when it had become an unworkable project after federal money was no longer earmarked for it.  On her watch, she has increased spending considerably, as I suppose you might expect from a petro-state flush with revenues, and she had bought the love of the people with rebates from the revenues raised by that new tax, but she is not really much of the reformer that she has been made out to be.  Of course, it is hard to know whether she could have accomplished more had she not been taken from her job after just a year and a half, but her actual record as of now is both thin and unremarkable. 

I rehash all of this not to dwell on Palin’s problems, which are increasingly irrelevant as McCain heads towards defeat, but to implore conservatives to stop ignoring reality just because they happen to like a candidate’s personality and biography.  Besides being bad for the quality of conservative thought, it embraces the caricature that conservatives are indifferent to knowledge and have no use for expertise, which has become an all too legitimate critique of how conservatives have responded to the misrule of the Bush administration.  That was not always the case, but if conservatives insist on making elaborate arguments that understanding and knowledge are not significant criteria when choosing our top elected officials they will lose whatever credibility they may still have.  More than that, they will be crippled by their embrace of cheerful ignorance when it comes time to oppose the policies of the Democratic administration that is surely about to be elected.

She is not a person of thought but of action. ~Peggy Noonan

On Thursday night, Palin took her inexperience and made a mansion out of it. From her first “Nice to meet you. May I call you Joe?” she made it abundantly, unstoppably and relentlessly clear that she was not of Washington, did not admire Washington and knew little about Washington. She ran not only against Washington, but the whole East Coast, just to be safe. ~David Brooks

Noonan and Brooks actually fall over themselves trying to compliment Palin on the modest success of being coherent, but these excerpts are striking in that someone might have written them as withering, sarcastic criticism and instead they are supposed to be a celebration of her virtues.  Noonan complains that Biden showed too much forbearance, but this is exactly what Noonan and Brooks show in their efforts to tip-toe around the obvious that for all her mastery of the non-answer and glittering generalities, to borrow Halcro’s language, she did not do very well.  Incredibly, her fans don’t seem to mind debasing the meaning of excellence if it allows them to call what we saw last night excellent.  There ought to have been some acknowledgement that it didn’t matter, that McCain was already fumbling and crumbling under the weight of his own mistakes, but instead we are treated to newfound, baseless enthusiasm:

Sarah Palin saved John McCain again Thursday night. She is the political equivalent of cardiac paddles: Clear! Zap! We’ve got a beat! She will re-electrify the base. More than that, an hour and a half of talking to America will take her to a new level of stardom.   

Well, there’s certainly no accounting for why people become excited about celebrities, but it seems to me that if the base is electrified any more it will begin to suffer permanent damage to its already clogged heart.  Noonan also notes that Palin’s “triumph” (no, I’m not making this up) comes on the heels of the defeat of the bailout bill in the House, but the bill comes up again today and is more likely to pass.  The bill is “festooned” (that word again!) with what are euphemistically called sweeteners–rather like the sugar one might add to mask the bitter taste of poison–and so it is unlikely the House will reject it again.  She says that the rejection of the bill, which the Senate just passed Wednesday with both McCain and Biden voting yea, “could not have helped Mr. Biden,” but it was the Republican candidate who needed the help and McCain’s support for the measure has ensured that he cannot tap into the populist backlash against it. 

Speaking of populism, Palin was peddling the phony variety earlier in the week on Hewitt’s program with her claim to represent Joe Sixpack (which is, of course, a name given to normal people by pundits who do not know them).  Noonan writes:

I’m not sure the McCain campaign is aware of it—it’s possible they are—but this is subtly divisive.

There’s nothing subtle about it, and it rings about as true as George Allen’s ridiculous claim to be one of the good ol’ boys, unlike that famous wine-and-cheeser Jim Webb.  The rapture with which “the base” greeted Palin’s Hewitt interview was in inverse proportion to the interview’s substance: “Oh, she called her son a stinker–how could we have ever doubted her?”  No doubt the word will go forth that anyone who questioned her competence has now been shown to be a fool and “out of touch.” Phony populism abounds on a ticket that embraced one of the most outrageous power-grabs of our time.

Noonan continues: 

As for the dismissal of conservative critics of Mrs. Palin as “Georgetown cocktail party types” (that was Mr. McCain), well, my goodness. That is the authentic sound of the aggression, and phony populism, of the Bush White House.  Good move. That ended well.  

In the end, that is all that McCain has.  The good news is that it will have a happier ending.  McCain will never have to find himself as a powerless lame duck President approaching the end of his second term, because he will never start his first.

How’s that for a compliment?  There’s no question that Palin was outmatched the entire time, and I am fairly sure that viewers will come away thinking that Biden was the winner and was more qualified for the VP role.  Give her credit–she held on through the entire thing, clutching to her prearranged attack points for dear life, and she didn’t say anything that was fantastically horrible.  Her statement on civilian casualties caused by airstrikes in Afghanistan would have been atrocious if I believed that she knew any better, but I feel confident that she does not know anything about the situation in Afghanistan.  McCain’s campaign is already in terminal decline, so it probably didn’t matter that much anyway.  Had she completely failed, it would have made the result more lopsided, but I expect that there will be only a marginal boost for Obama in the next few days.

Meanwhile, the gift that keeps on giving, the eternal Couric interview, gives us this.  Biden says that Cheney’s usurpations and crazy constitutional theories were the worst things he’s done. Palin says, I kid you not, the worst thing he did was his duck-hunting accident.  What is there to say?     

Update: CBS poll of uncommitted voters gives Biden the win 46-21% with 33% saying it was tie.  CNN respondents rated Biden the winner 51-36.

“Can I call you Joe?”  And so it begins.

Straight to the bailout.  Biden declares the policies of the last eight years to be the worst ever.  Wall Street running wild!  Biden goes into his recitation of Obama’s four principles of bailout.  Palin: fear at soccer games is the barometer of economic troubles.  Oversight and reform are needed–McCain offers reform.  No one wanted to listen to McCain, but he brought people together–that must be why the House rejected the bailout.  Palin: The American workforce is strong!  A team of mavericks has a track record of reform.  Obama is not bipartisan–so there.  Get ‘er done.  Americans want change, not more of the same. 

Who’s to blame?  Palin: Predator lenders!  Greed on Wall Street.  Borrowers have no responsibility.  Joe Sixpacks and Hockey Moms working together.  It has been ten minutes, and she hasn’t said anything yet.  Biden: Wall Street running wild!  Palin: Tax relief is needed.  Where did that come from?  She goes back to her old line about Obama and the 94 times he didn’t cut taxes.  She has entirely missed the point of her chance at rebuttal; Biden scores an easy point on McCain and deregulation.  Palin is harping on taxes.  Straight talk!  McCain is a super-regulator.

Biden says that the middle class should have tax cuts; Palin says that Biden is wrong–the middle class should have tax cuts.  Palin took on oil companies–not like that oil magnate-loving Obama.  She is randomly looking for ways to talk about Alaska.  She completely evaded the original question.  Nothing needs to be sacrificed because of the financial crisis.  Biden notes that Palin supported a windfall profits tax in Alaska, which is true, and adds that Obama wants to do the same thing.  Palin: corruption and greed on Wall Street, the mortgage lenders reared their head–just like Putin, I’m sure–and McCain fought them with reform.  There’s a toxic mess. 

Palin’s record on energy returns yet again.  She has nothing else to talk about.  What does this have to do with bankruptcy regulations?  She mentioned both energy independence and hungry markets–drink!  She was focused on “climate change impacts” with her sub-cabinet.  “Drill, baby, drill is the chant.”  Palin agrees to capping carbon emissions–way to stay on message.  Biden tries to save himself on his bungled clean coal statement. 

Biden “absolutely, positively” supports giving benefits to homosexual couples.  The response should be interesting.  Palin is not interested in redefining marriage.  But she’s very tolerant–she has a diverse group of friends!  Good grief.  She’s being as straight up as she can be.  Biden does not support gay marriage, but commends Palin on her support for civil benefits.  Everyone agrees!

Palin lauds the “surge” and Petraeus.  Here we go.  Biden points out that Palin offered no plan.  No end in sight for the war for McCain.  Palin: white flag of surrender!  The “surge” worked!  Palin respects Biden so much that she can’t believe that he works with Obama.  Biden: God love him, but McCain is dead wrong.  Biden is focused on Pakistan. 

Palin: Petraeus and Al Qaeda agree that Iraq is the central front.  Don’t they cancel each other out?  Iran cannot be allowed to have nukes, full stop.  Ahmadinejad is crazy!  Obama is a dangerous talker.  Kissinger returns to the scene.  Palin: they hate us for our freedom.  Yawn.  Biden: McCain’s Zapatero gaffe is unbelievable.

Palin: Two-state solution is the solution.  No second Holocaust–that’s reassuring, I suppose.  Put the embassy in Jerusalem–that’ll be the day.  Biden: The policy of the administration has been an abject failure.  Not much you can say against that.  Palin: Everyone loves Israel.  Yay!  Don’t worry about the past.  Cliches abound–McCain has been a maverick.  I think I’ve heard that before. 

Biden sounds incredulous.  You can tell that he can’t believe he has to be in this debate.  Palin is for nonproliferation.  That’s nice.  “Surge” principles in Afghanistan.  Palin has no clue what’s going on in Afghanistan.  She doesn’t know that there hasn’t been a heavy reliance on airstrikes that have killed many civilians.  Biden cites a general in Afghanistan saying that a “surge” won’t work.  Palin says that’s not so.         

Biden: Americans have a stomach for success.  Intervention galore.  Biden lies about his vote for invading Iraq.  Here comes Darfur; Biden is back to his no-fly zone obsession.  Is anyone buying anything Palin says?  “We can agree about that also,” she says of Darfur.  She supported divestment from Sudan.  Palin is preoccupied with Biden’s war vote–who’s talking about the past now?  McCain will learn from his own blunders.  Biden: This election is super-important; I am like John Nance Garner.  Palin: A team of mavericks, ANWR–drink! 

Palin looks like she’s about to laugh as she rattles off her spiel.  Biden plays the “are you better off today?” card.  “There you go again,” Palin says.  Did she really say that?  She says that Biden’s wife’s reward is in heaven–is that in exchange for not getting paid very well?

Alex Massie speaks for all of us: “I too want extra credit for watching this.”    

Palin: people aren’t looking for more of the same.  Does she know which side she’s on?  Biden: McCain’s not a real maverick!  As they start to wrap up, I will admit that Palin has avoided disaster.  Biden has put in a pretty successful performance.  My guess is that Biden will come off as the clear winner in the eyes of viewers, but it will not be as lopsided as her critics expected.

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.

—————

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 have had a lot to say against Reagan nostalgia and the constant invocation of Reagan as a way for modern Republicans to explain away or distract from their errors, failures and bad policies, but what has been striking in recent days is how the McCain campaign and some Palin fans, abandoning the idiocy of the Alaska-is-close-to-Russia gambit, are now desperate to shelve the entire question of foreign policy experience by traducing Reagan’s reputation for understanding of foreign affairs when he was still a governor.  Here is part of Lisa Schiffren’s debate advice to Palin:

I do not have foreign policy experience. As Govs. Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan did, I will learn the names of foreign leaders and the conventions for discussing foreign policy. 

Leave Clinton out of the discussion for the moment (his time overseas was, of course, highlighted during the ’92 campaign, but not in a flattering way).  No one on the right who has ever heard or read Reagan’s convention speech from 1964 could come away with the belief that Reagan did not have very clear and informed views on foreign policy years before his first run for office and decades before his nomination for national office, and Reagan was less formally experienced in government in 1964 than Palin is today.  Reagan didn’t need to learn the names of foreign leaders and conventions for discussing foreign policy when he was nominated to a national ticket, because he had already acquired that knowledge decades earlier.  If there were people who underestimated Reagan during any of his presidential campaigns, and I know there were, they did so out of their ignorance of what Reagan’s familiarity with foreign affairs was.  There’s some pretty poor reasoning going on among Palin’s fans: “Palin is a governor, Reagan was a governor, therefore Palin will be like Reagan.”  What is most remarkable about all of this is that in the desperate effort to make Palin credible even Reagan will be shown disrespect.

When someone at a restaurant asked Palin a question about Pakistan that generated some controversy because it seemed to contradict McCain’s previous statement at the debate, the McCain campaign dubbed it “gotcha journalism” and right away when Gibson stumped Palin with his Bush Doctrine question there was a great hue and cry about the “gotcha” nature of this question.  Apparently the questions on her reading habits and Court rulings has also been defined as a “gotcha” question by Palin supporters, even though it is as certain as the sun rising that journalists will ask nominees their views on judicial philosophy and Court rulings.  It seems to me that we are redefining what “gotcha” means from the sort of Russertian exegesis that involved laying careful ambushes for smooth, evasive pols as a way of pinning down their positions to any question that candidates have trouble answering.  In other words, the “gotcha” is no longer an ambush–it can include any question to which the candidate really should have an answer.         

The classic “gotcha” structure works something like this: “Governor, on such and such a day, you said that you supported X, but last week you said A, which many experts claim implies support for Y.  Are you in favor of Y, and have you been misleading us all this time?”  Say yes, and you’re a fraud; say no, and you’re an idiot.  The questioner then sits back and watches the candidate tap dance his way out of the trap.  The good dancers are considered competent, and the clumsy ones are considered unfit.  There is some debate about whether this is useful, and there are reasons to find fault with it as a substitute for more serious questions, but on the whole it tends to keep pols on their toes and makes them slightly more accountable.  But now we are declaring questions that are simply queries for information: “what do you think about X?” or “are there other Court rulings with which you disagree?”  This is not a trick.  As many commenters and bloggers have observed, Exxon v. Baker would have been an obvious answer, Alaska-related ruling that Palin has disagreed with formally in her capacity as governor that would have combined all of her favorite themes: Alaska, fighting Big Oil and fighting for the people.  She could have won a couple of conservationist points in the process.  Did she say any of that?  No.  If she accepts a right to privacy and she is also a federalist, what does she make of Lawrence v. Henry?  Again, these are not tricks–they are attempts to discern what her worldview is and what her understanding of the Constitution is, which are both very relevant if she is going to have a role in advising McCain on judicial nominees and especially since she would be in a position to assume the Presidency herself.     

When this year’s rulings came down, the presidential nominees either volunteered their opinions on the rulings or they were asked about them.  McCain denounced Boumediene and endorsed Heller.  Obama supported both, which caused him some trouble because he had said that he thought the D.C. gun ban was constitutional.  Would it have been “gotcha” journalism to ask Palin if she also disagreed with Boumediene?  Does she, as an avid 2nd Amendment advocate, agree with Heller, or as a federalist does she take issue with the Supreme Court interfering with local regulations?  If Ifill asks these questions tonight, is she playing “gotcha” or trying to gain information and a window into the candidate’s reasoning and understanding of the relevant policies?  This might be worth sorting out in advance so that we’ll know which flubbed answers to ignore and which ones are important.  If all questions are now “gotcha,” maybe we can just skip watching the debate and go have a drink.

Instead of seeing Palin’s poor answers as proof of ignorance, perhaps we could see it as awkward stonewalling, which isn’t an improvement, but unless we do that I’m not sure why it shouldn’t weigh heavily against her that she doesn’t answer many of the questions put to her very well.  Handling the press and answering questions are parts of the typical VP role.  In normal, non-Cheney times, the VP is a leading surrogate for the administration; even Cheney has served as a surrogate when necessary.  Even if all of these questions are “gotcha” questions, being able to answer them or evade them is part of the job.  I suppose there is too much triviality and silliness in the way that candidates are questioned, but would anyone claim that Palin would be doing better if the process were even more substantive?

Update: Ross clarifies his remark about “gotcha” questions, and I see that we don’t disagree on this.

Just over one-third of voters (34%) say tonight’s vice presidential debate is Very Important to how they will vote, and over half (54%) view Joseph Biden as the more skilled debater, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. ~Rasmussen

Good grief.  34%?  Looking at the crosstabs, I see that 28% of independents and 22% of McCain supporters say that the debate tonight will be very important for how they vote.  I take this to mean that all these people could change their minds based on what happens tonight.  If tonight goes as badly for Palin as I think many of us expect it will, does that really mean that up to a fifth of McCain’s supporters could be at least temporarily lost?  That seems impossible.  I know there are people, including opponents, who say that she is effective in debates, but I have seen her performances in the gubernatorial debates in ’06 and I’m not sure that the “glittering generality” will wear well when she is asked questions on national policy.  The Senate just passed the bailout last night, so you can be sure that both candidates will get a question about that and the financial crisis more generally.  We know what she said in her last answer about the bailout.  How much aw-shucksing and talking about her 401K can she do before she has to touch on larger policy matters?  38% of McCain supporters believe that Palin is the more skilled debater.  Is that just reflexive loyalty to one’s own candidate that guarantees that these people are going to think that Palin wins the debate no matter what happens, or is that a serious expectation that Palin is supposed to win that will result in disappointment?     

The L.A. Times has a story on the debate:

“The picture that we’ve been given thus far is something of a caricature,” said Whit Ayres, a Republican consultant. He said that Palin should accent her rationale for being on the ticket. 

“She doesn’t have to be an expert in the politics of Kosovo or Georgia to be viewed as a competent vice presidential choice [bold mine-DL],” Ayres said. “What they are going to be looking for is her set of values, her sympathies, her orientation to the world, who she connects with.”

I guess she’s fortunate that no one is expecting her to demonstrate expert knowledge of that kind.  It strikes me that the VP nominee has to demonstrate some measure of preparedness to assume the Presidency.  Values and sympathies are all very well, but if the audience cannot imagine her as a plausible President they might think she is a saint and still not be reassured.