Palin’s debate performance looms large
By Nick Ragone | Related entries in NewsJohn McCain has a real uphill challenge over the next 30+ days.
Just about every major poll shows him trailing by 5 points or so, and in the key battleground red states– Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada and Ohio – he’s also lagging. The politics of the bailout, his campaign suspension, and debate performance did not help him; in fact, it probably cost him a few points. No candidate has ever overcome this large a deficit after October first.Â
And next on the horizon: the vice presidential debate. Boy … McCain really needs a game changer — he can’t withstand another awful week — and in that sense his campaign may hinge on Palin’s performance.
If the race was a dead-heat, Palin would be able to play defense and simply rope-a-dope her way through the debate. However, with McCain trailing badly, he actually needs her to go on the offensive and score points. It won’t be enough for her to just survive and look adequate; she needs to take the fight to Biden, and recapture some of the momentum that she had during the convention.
It might be too much to ask of Palin, but the McCain people can’t play it safe. They’re going to have to let “Sarah be Sarah” and see where the chips fall.Â
www.nickragone.com
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September 29th, 2008 at 8:19 am
I can’t believe that the VP debate can make that big a positive difference for McCain, even if Palin hit it out of the park. I go back to the Benson/Quayle debate, and the famous “you are no Kennedy” smack down. No VP debate was ever more decisive. Didn’t help Dukakis. With expectations so low, I expect Palin will do just fine, as will Biden. If McCain is to close the gap, he’ll have to do it himself in the next debate.
September 29th, 2008 at 8:52 am
Actually, I think if Palin manages to simply hold her own it will so massively exceed expectations that it will help McCain quite a lot. After all, if she can go from the disaster of the Couric interview to sounding like she actually knows what she is talking about, maybe she really is going to be able to get up to speed enough over the next 3 months to not be a horror if she ended up President relatively soon. And that, at the moment, seems to be the concern of an awful lot of people who otherwise would be McCain supporters.
September 29th, 2008 at 9:51 am
Count on Ms Mooseburger to do a repeat of her disasterous Gibson and Couric interviews. By the way, CBC has more embarrassing clips to air shortly according to the blogosphere.
September 29th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
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