Arkansas Blog

I know he cannot nor will but Biden should say next to nothing. Give Palin as much of his time as possible. Let her talk.

About 5 minutes worth of answering those 'gotcha' questions, anything she fumbles is a 'gotcha', from the moderator and the audience will be in such pain they will vote for Obama just so they never see her on TV again.

Exactly. Palin will dig her own grave by merely opening her mouth and letting the air fly out.

I sincerely hope Biden's/Obama's people have made this point abundantly clear to him and he presents himself with total humility. He understands that the scales are tipped in his favor, but if he really knows what's good for him, he need not act like an over-confident, arrogant, smarmy know-it-all.

Palin doesn't know foreign policy or anything else remotely relevant to te general public from a hole in the ground. Give her as much space as possible to stumble and she will trip and fall flat on her face.

And "get right back to ya," Mr. or Mrs. Moderator.

The moderator is a known Obama support so Sarah has to be on guard. Likely Ifill is a witch and will try to use witchcraft on Sarah. They know her witchcraft preventative is weak now.

Don't look at her Sarah! Beware the evil eye!

Don't look at Biden either just to be safe!

"he need not act like an over-confident, arrogant, smarmy know-it-all."

The gaffe machine? You must be kidding. This could be re-aired in place of SNL this week. It is going to be truly hilarious. Or, is that truly sad?

Nope. Nope.

America's getting punked again. Expectations for Palin's performance have fallen so low that she can't help but be perceived as not being "as bad" in the debate as everybody thought. That'll be enough to keep at least much of the unthinking majority confused.

It worked for W. It'll work for Sarah, at least in the short-term spin cycle.

24fps is right.

Palin is a trained talking head, as a sportscaster and pageant queen. She is photogenic, and has a non-politician, average person, style.

Her expectations have fallen so low that the headlines the next day are already written:

"Palin Exceeds Expectations"
"Held her own, outsider perspective, agent of change, knows what it is like to be a working mom, etc. etc. etc."

This will be followed by a bump for McCain as the unthinking majority decides she's not a total idiot. (Just as one of Obama's strongest qualifications is that he beat a Clinton, total idiots don't get elected as governor).

As we saw with W, many Americans don't like people who are too smart.

I've heard this theme of "Biden better not..." way too much.

Palin, if you haven't noticed, is not only ignorant of current events and the context of those events, she is also egotistical, tyrannnical and mean. McCain needs someone to go out there and hit Obama, not just survive this thing. Survival means the death of McCain-Palin. She has to do some damage or its just a waste of time. Palin will be happy to do that because she wants to salvage her credibility.

It all seems very easy for Biden just to sit there and be quiet, but if Palin starts doing damage and he doesn't respond, it is a problem. It isn't as simple as just letting her dig her own grave, the format is highly structured and she will basically be giving mini-speeches from notes without direct rebuttal. Biden may have to do one of those rule-bending direct addresses to her at a well chosen moment.

The VP is an attack dog and shouldn't be interested in being nice. I don't agree that McCain should be the only issue in this debate. I think Biden needs to point out just how scary it would be for Palin to be one heartbeat away and this could be the only opportunity to make that point with many people. This is a serious election and Biden needs to do the country a service and take this she-moose down.

Palin is only an advantage as long as she makes McCain look good, she isn't going to carry the ticket on her own, especially after what we saw in the interviews she's done. She only helps if she isn't a drag. I say make her an even bigger drag than she already is. Get the talking heads going on and on about how mean Biden is and with that there will be the unspoken truth that Palin couldn't handle the big time.

Ok.. on this "Ordinary People" from Palin. I don't know about you all, but I was absolutely insulted by her "ordinary 6 pack Joe" comment. First, I'm not a beer drinker and I thought I was an average ( though with above average intelligence) citizen. Second, from the party of "family values" comes more hypocrisy! The only 6 pack I want is in my abs and that isn't happening soon! Really, people are defending her repugnance right to the White House and if we couldn't see where that got us!

Again,
On November 4 most of us will be voting for President of the United States. It was smart of the R's to divert our attention away from that fact with a bright shiny object who is the stylistic opposite the R candidate.

.

As pitiful as W was, Gore ran a poor campaign, the anti-Clinton mess was still in play, he was inheriting a budget surplus, and he lost.

People may actually want to see some ability here with McGoober being 72. This whole Joe Six Pack persona with the little quips and shots is cute but, we have another 30 days of bad financial news ahead. All of those gaffes are going to make good campaign commercials in another coupled of weeks.

Hate to go all strangelove on everyone and respond to myself, but I had another point.

It seems like the actual expectations are that the expectations are so low that Palin will win the debate. So, aren't the expectations actually that Palin will win? Doesn't she have to win to meet expectations?

My point is that this discussion of the effect of expectations is as much a part of the perception of the upcoming debate as the original expectations themselves, maybe more.

I think you are on to something GUMM in a left handed way. You can spin the outcome but, you still have the outcome you spin. Or, W did well in his debates, so the spin was he benefited from low expectations. He had to do well to get the Spin. She must perform before they can find an excuse for her success. There is a threshold. Yes, she is experienced on stage but, this is a pretty big stage.

Interesting comments here. Hopefully (surely!) Biden has done some thorough contingency planning for this debate. He should construct a handy flowchart to help maintain control, such as...

IF Palin is floundering THEN show humility--don't kick her while she's down.

IF Palin comes out bearing her attack bee-yatch fangs THEN go for her throat.

IF she makes an obvious misstatement that could be attributed to inexperience or plain ignorance, THEN throw her a lifeline (a show of charity).

I'm obviously no political strategist, but surely Biden has more than one plan.

The key will be the questions I hope. I am sure she is well schooled by now on her 'talking points' and the rightwingnuts will not care one iota that she acts robotic.

These debates are for the undecided and independent out there.

How in the world did Bush win twice? The voter is so gullible and naive.

I'd like to believe that American voters can see through the smokescreen of Palin's...I hate to call it "rhetoric...of her verbal evasion.

But when I see hear those glowing remarks of her supporters at rallies and look at the vacuous, image-driven faces, I wonder.

Listen to her drivel in the latest interview with Katie Couric and all you hear is a spate of bold-faced lies. But astonishingly, they're told with a twist designed to humanize Palin. She opposes legal rights of women to morning-after pills.

But by the time she admits this, she has spun such a mendacious narrative of spurious concern for those same women that we're tempted to forget--and many American voters will forget--that the outcome of her position is draconian, not comforting. She wants and will enact laws making it harder for women to obtain access to morning-after pills and contraception.

Our appetite for the ever bigger lie seems to be growing. And Sister Sarah is there to satisfy that appetite and deceive those of us pleading to be deceived that the face beneath the mask of "compassionate" conservatism is not outright evil.

What a stark comparison: Knowledgeable Joe has to hold back, handle his knowledge 'cause he might be seen as picking on Sarah because of her ignorance. You'd think that America had had it's fill of electing ignorant nincompoops 'cause they're...ignorant nincompoops.

Even if Joe sticks his foot in his mouth again...he's still got more knowledge in his little finger than Sarah does in her entire beauty queen body. Who in the hell doesn't know what they read...or the names of the country's major newspapers...or their own state's major newspapers??? Besides, if she wants to run with the Big Boys she shouldn't get special treatment. Hillary sure has to take the same crap her male counterparts do...usually she has to take more.

But Sarah's ignorance doesn't bother me AS MUCH as the religious nuttiness that defines most of the public policies she advocates. Of course...that's just another chicken/egg scenario. You've got to be a religious nut to advocate that our public schools teach that the earth is five thousand years old.

Aesop's Fable...
The Buffoon and the Countryman
A RICH NOBLEMAN once opened the theaters without charge to the people, and gave a public notice that he would handsomely reward any person who invented a new amusement for the occasion. Various public performers contended for the prize. Among them came a Buffoon well known among the populace for his jokes, and said that he had a kind of entertainment which had never been brought out on any stage before. This report being spread about made a great stir, and the theater was crowded in every part. The Buffoon appeared alone upon the platform, without any apparatus or confederates, and the very sense of expectation caused an intense silence. He suddenly bent his head towards his bosom and imitated the squeaking of a little pig so admirably with his voice that the audience declared he had a porker under his cloak, and demanded that it should be shaken out. When that was done and nothing was found, they cheered the actor, and loaded him with the loudest applause. A Countryman in the crowd, observing all that has passed, said, "So help me, Hercules, he shall not beat me at that trick!" and at once proclaimed that he would do the same thing on the next day, though in a much more natural way. On the morrow a still larger crowd assembled in the theater, but now partiality for their favorite actor very generally prevailed, and the audience came rather to ridicule the Countryman than to see the spectacle. Both of the performers appeared on the stage. The Buffoon grunted and squeaked away first, and obtained, as on the preceding day, the applause and cheers of the spectators. Next the Countryman commenced, and pretending that he concealed a little pig beneath his clothes (which in truth he did, but not suspected by the audience ) contrived to take hold of and to pull his ear causing the pig to squeak. The Crowd, however, cried out with one consent that the Buffoon had given a far more exact imitation, and clamored for the Countryman to be kicked out of the theater. On this the rustic produced the little pig from his cloak and showed by the most positive proof the greatness of their mistake. "Look here," he said, "this shows what sort of judges you are."

Calm down. It's just a little Palinophobic hysteria. Take a few breaths into a paper bag until your head clears. You can try treating your condition with some simple desensitizing exercises: Look into a mirror and repeat to yourself "Vice President Sarah Palin" over and over until it rolls effortlessly off our tongue.

I got my 6 pack of Dr. Pepper ready!

GRPIII, I agree that the after-spin is a component of a larger, related point, but my point is specifically that we are discussing the expectations of others without considering our own. It may actually be that the public we are so eagerly denigrating for their ignorance is actually aware of this meta-theme of expectations and that is the real expectation here, rather than merely that Palin will not do well. I think that changes the dynamic. I think that unless the expectation of minimal competence is met, Palin will lose. If that is her only goal, to bring my earlier post in, she may be considered a winner, but McCain will lose.

I have to also agree with hugh mann, if Palin can make the point that she is a dangerous choice without Biden's help, then treading water and showing a steady hand is all he needs to do.

If you listen to the entire radio interview you hear the interviewer ask her if she and her husband have ever had a tough time economically. She says, of course, and immediately talks about having to pay their health insurance out of their own pockets and then about when she and her husband got "good union jobs" and things were better. I had to listen to it twice to be sure she actually said it. She has so totally "drunk the Kool-Aid" that she doesn't even know who she is and what has contributed to her life. You'd think a good Democrat would be the one talking about how getting a "good union job" gave them advantages they wouldn't have had otherwise.

Isn't eight years of stupid enough? I say let's try something else. This just hasn't worked out too well.

I've been thinking about proposing an amendment to the constitution.

Maybe we could call it the - Freedom from dumb lying delusional hissy fits amendment:

If a citizen has ever volunteered to having witches removed.. perhaps they should not be allowed to run for public office. At the very least they should not be allowed to complain about books in the library (especially books they never read) or deny women rape kits or other health care?

I have a new path to success for Palin. She doesn't have to look better than Biden. She simply has to hammer the point that she will be better than Cheney. I mean really, who would you rather have?

The only problem with that argument is that McGoober is starting to look worse than Bush; hard to imagine that possible.

The attack on Gwen Ifill has begun......she is a black liberal in sheep's clothing.

What sheep's clothing. She is a proud black liberal.

I didn't say that well at all, I'll start over.

If moosemama does badly the Rwingnuts will say Ifill set her up to lose because she is for

Obama.....its already started on MSNBC. Mike Murphy called for her to step down this aft.

I am a proud lib woman too, most on this blog are of one mind, except the few trolls who

pop up with no facts or links to facts.

I see you are new to the blog, if you stick around you will soon pick out the sheep from the

goats, good from the bad........
Get my drift??