VP Dough

So the VP debate is day after tomorrow. As things stand now, I think we're looking at three possibilities, listed from most to least likely:

1. Palin is able to stick to her memorized responses and even land a few hits. Biden sticks to his guns and attacks McCain. Press declares a win for Palin and questions about her start to fade into the background, but no real change in polling, except possibly a 1-point "base bounce" for McCain.
2. Palin really duffs it up. Maybe she doesn't know how to answer a crucial question, or flat-out contradicts her own platform again, or just has another of her famous "stall with drivel" moments. Attacks on her from left and right intensify, pressure mounts for McCain to apologize for her, etc. Momentum of the polling is mostly unchanged--Obama continues to gain, though is bound to hit a plateau soo.
3. Biden makes a really, really bad gaffe. It would have to be quite bad, bad enough to turn off even supporters. Narrative shifts away from Palin's incompetence, right starts up the mock-outrage machine, race starts to tighten thanks to corresponding scrutiny on Obama camp.

I have to doubt 3 will happen. I do think there's a fair chance Biden could say something vaguely wrongheaded, like his FDR gaffe or "clean and articulate," and it might turn into a localized controversy for one or two news cycles but not penetrate public confidence. For Possibility 3 to really change the game, Biden would have to reach gross levels of poor taste--reaching for Palin's ass when he hugs her, repeatedly using condescending and sexist language, or something similarly egregious. I don't see that happening--Biden isn't dumb, and you can bet he's being coached about avoiding this kind of disaster, since it's one of his only true vulnerabilities going into the debate.

Number 2 is, of course, what we're all dreaming of. I can't tell you how fucking ecstatic I would be if Palin managed to display her unreadiness as gorily as she did with Couric. And in small ways, she probably will seem shaky on a few questions; if Gwen Ifill starts to ask "pros-and-cons"-style followups as Couric did, Palin could be in trouble. But as for truly back-breaking balls-ups, I would think Palin's prep team has pretty much ironed them out of her by now. As long as the questions aren't too focused on obscure aspects of highly specific issues, chances are Palin will have a canned response ready, and as long as she can bring that response from brain to mouth in recognizable form, she isn't going to sound catastrophically braindead this time. Of course, we could always get lucky.

But it's the first outcome that I think is most likely. Biden will have been instructed to (a) show warmth to Palin, to avoid comparisons to McCain; (b) be thorough and wonkish but not contrastive to Palin herself, letting the inherent discrepancy between Palin's knowledge and his own shine through without being aggressive; (c) focus all attacks on McCain and Republicans rather than Palin; and (d) not fuck it up, i.e. don't reach over and grab Palin's tit or something. Palin will have been taught to (a) insert as many smiling, Umbridge-style faux-populist cheap shots at Obama and Dems as she can; (b) keep responses brief, but drop as many names as possible to appear knowledgable; maintain a Presidential demeanor; and (d) keep to the script whenever humanly possible. Both candidates will be fairly cautious; they both just want to get through this thing without utterly screwing over their running mate. And so what we'll have is a mostly boring debate with few fireworks or memorable lines. And just as "holding his own against McCain" was enough for Obama, holding her own against Biden will be enough for Palin--more than enough, in fact, as far as the media is concerned. I wish we could look forward to an exciting debate, but I just don't see it happening.