Her Biggest Test: Sarah Palin Dropping in Polls as She Heads Into Debate With Joe Biden
By Thomas M. DeFrank
Daily News Washington Bureau Chief
WASHINGTON—It looks like Sarah's tanking—and it couldn't come at a worse time for her or John McCain.
Palin and Sen. Joe Biden debate at Washington University in St. Louis Thursday night as two new polls find much of America falling out of love with the Alaska governor.
They suggest her rattled and at times incoherent performance in recent television interviews has damaged her standing with some voters—and contributed to McCain's slump in the polls.
Two weeks ago, McCain's handlers believed Palin's downhome style, fresh face and underdog appeal would overcome her lack of experience and allow her to win the expectations game for the only vice presidential faceoff against the more knowledgeable and polished Biden.
"She's got the likability and poise, so even if her answers aren't perfect she'll be fine," a top McCain strategist confidently predicted last week.
Now, however, Palin has become a drag on McCain. A Pew poll reports 51% of Americans believe she's unqualified to be president, up sharply from 39% a month ago.
"There is a clear correlation between views of Palin's qualifications and support for McCain," Pew's Andrew Kohut said.
So Thursday night's highly anticipated contest is suddenly more urgent for the Republican ticket. A strong Palin showing could validate McCain's credibility in picking her and stop his political bleeding. Just staying on her feet for 90 minutes without a pratfall won't be enough to erase the public's doubts about her.
The old conventional wisdom had said tonight would be riskier for Biden, who has a history of verbal gaffes. Recently, for example, he said Franklin D. Roosevelt went on television to calm Americans' fears during the Great Depression. That meltdown began before FDR was president, and before TV.
"Biden has the bigger problem," a top GOP consultant said last week. "How is he going to go 90 minutes without being condescending or patronizing to her?"
Biden and his handlers understand the danger. "He knows he's got to be deferential and can't talk down to her," one of them told the Daily News. "She has more to prove than he does."
And just as Biden has to prove he can curb his loose tongue, Palin has to keep hers untied.
Republicans worry that Palin, who's been transferring talking points onto 5-by-7 index cards during prep sessions at McCain's home in Sedona, Ariz., has too much new information to absorb in too short a time.
At the McCain side's insistence, there's less opportunity for extended give-and-take than at last week's presidential debate. Tonight's format features 90-second answers, followed by two minutes of discussion.
Reader Comments
Sarah Palin's-the woman behind the mask
Sarah Palin’s theatrical descents from airplanes holding her baby, her skirting questions with memorized scripts, her studied folksy language, her going for the jugular while smiling sweetly, the barracuda glare behind her spectacles—all this might charm and energize the social conservative base, but it’s not going to sway many independent voters. Her shallow grasp of the substantive issues aside, the more independent voters get to know the real Sarah Palin, the more she will turn them off. John McCain made a huge mistake letting his handlers pick the lip-stick, pit-bull, barracuda hockey mom as his running mate. If he loses the election, it will be largely because of her.
Who is Sarah Palin?
That John McCain is out of touch with America is evident in his asking who Barak Obama is. The senator from Illinois has been vetted and re-vetted more thoroughly than any political figure in recent history. Every American who reads a newspaper or watches TV knows full well who and what Barak Obama is. The man is an open book. The same, though, cannot be said of John McCain’s running mate. The public has yet to know the full story behind her ties with the secessionist Alaskan Independence party, her veiled acceptance of earmarks, her undisclosed government perks, her alleged abuse of power, her anti-witchcraft rituals, her daughter’s shotgun wedding, and so forth. The pit-bull, barracuda, untutored hockey mom from the most sparsely populated state in the nation is the one who is a mystery. Why John McCain chose her over far better qualified candidates as his running mate is also a mystery.
Not just a case of nerves!
When I watched her debut at the Republican National Convention, I worried that America would fall for her populist style and her commercial appeal and vote for McCain-Palin because of it. I worried that McCain's team was on to something. Sure, they weren't fooling me but I thought they would succeed based on that night's performance. Yes, it was a performance and I knew it! LOL
I am so thankful that we have youtube, and the internet in addition to the typical mediums we have had in prior elections, because one really can't fly under the radar so easily these days. Without the aforementioned, and because so few people read newspapers or watch news or do any real research on candidates, most would not have seen with their own eyes Sarah Palin's true colors and obvious lack of experience and understanding of world affairs and issues.
I didn't think we would ever see anyone as idiotic as George W. Bush but I was incorrect. It is pathetic to watch her stutter and grimace and struggle to prove she is qualified for anything more than head of the PTA and almost sad for her to be exposed as a liar, as an actress, as a woman who obviously had no understanding of the microscope she would be under that just doesn't lie. Did she really think she was the best candidate? Does she really think she was chosen for her political prowess? Aaahahahaha! Didn't she realize she was just a gimmick and a means to an end for McCain in his attempt to capitalize on the guilt of all who should have voted for Hillary and didn't? That she was just the bait for the puppet-minded Republicans who are desperate to prove that they aren't all as stupid as their candidates and who have been defending themselves for 6 of the last 8 years as their leader Bush has embarrassed them and destroyed all the America was before he took office?
It must have shocked her when she was asked to join the ticket, and they must have really sold her a bill of goods because she started to believe she was qualified. If only they would let her do what she does best and sling redneck insults about people and things she really doesn't understand...and make all of the comments the typical sheep-like Christians do...if only they would stop asking her questions about what she would do and how she would change things and foreign policy and energy and Supreme Court rulings and the law and what the VP does, right? These aren't even HARD questions!!! Every day citizens are capable of writing editorials on what they would change, then they drive off to a blue collar job and yet they seem more qualified than she. Aaawww...and to think she brought her daughter with her on the campaign trails so she could see a powerful woman in action. How sad! Sarah is NOT qualifed and she is NOT fooling anyone.
I predict McCain is brainstorming a way out of this ridiculous choice for a running mate, and that he is being yelled at by his wife right now for screwing her out of First Lady honors! LOL
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