Debate Prep

Word is that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and Delaware Sen. Joe Biden have immersed themselves in preparations for Thursday night's vice presidential debate.

Rebecca Traister, writing in Salon.com, says she refuses to join in a premature "Palin pity party" — as many seem to be doing.

Personally, I haven't seen so much attention given to the likelihood of a "train wreck" in a debate since Lloyd Bentsen was about to debate Dan ("You're no Jack Kennedy") Quayle 20 years ago.

Usually, it seems to me, when the media anticipates a train wreck, one tends to occur.

I don't know who was Traister's preference for president during the primaries, but I gather, from what she writes, that she supported Hillary Clinton.

"[J]ust because I did say this weekend that I 'almost feel sorry for [Palin]' doesn't mean, when I consider the situation rationally, that I do," Traister writes. "Yes, as a feminist, it sucks — hard — to watch a woman, no matter how much I hate her politics, unable to answer questions about her running mate during a television interview.

"And perhaps it's because this experience pains me so much that I feel not sympathy but biting anger. At her, at John McCain, at the misogynistic political mash that has been made of what was otherwise a groundbreaking year for women in presidential politics."

So, that's one attitude that Palin may not be able to overcome in a 90-minute televised encounter with Joe Biden.

Early stumbles on the national stage can create negative images that political figures never manage to reverse. For decades, those images have been cultivated by late-night TV talk show hosts — and the speed with which such images can circle the globe today can be measured in nanoseconds, thanks to the internet.

How many times did Gerald Ford stumble in public while president? Twice, by my count, but Chevy Chase built his career on Ford's reputation for being a klutz (which was bolstered by the old Lyndon Johnson line about Ford playing football without a helmet).

Rare as they were, those images remained with many people when Ford's body lay in state 30 years after his loss to Jimmy Carter in the 1976 presidential election.

And, as conservative columnist David Frum told the New York Times, "The story of Dan Quayle is he did probably 1,000 smart things as vice president, but his image was locked in and it was very difficult to turn around. And Dan Quayle never in his life has performed as badly as Sarah Palin in the last month."

Nevertheless, Wesley Pruden writes, in the Washington Times, that yesterday's defeat of the financial bailout package "sets up an opportunity, maybe the last good one, for John McCain to start burning barns. Who better to start it than Sarah Palin, the stubborn mom with true grit who so terrifies the Democratic left?"

If anything is certain about Thursday night's debate, it is that it is Palin's best opportunity — if it is not her last opportunity — to change the public's opinion of her.

Given the treatment she has received on "Saturday Night Live" recently, that may be easier said than done.