The Unchosen One

The debate tonight is supposed to be one of the most watched events of the year. It will more than likely be the most watched VP debate in history. This is what is going to happen tonight, and what will happen following the debate.

The debate will take place between Joe Biden and Sarah Palin for those of you who have been living under a rock. They are the Democratic and Republican candidates for Vice President, respectively. The moderator for the night is Gwen Ifill. Ifill is being criticized, by some, for having a “vested interest” in the debate tonight. She is writing a book in which there is some discussion of Barack Obama. Critics are saying that she should be replaced by somebody that can be more indifferent to the candidates. Ifill, though, has a history of being a fair moderator in prior debates and we should expect nothing different tonight. Given that there is a conflict of interest almost guarantees that she cannot show bias towards one candidate or the other. This will be a fair debate, with tough questions asked of each candidate.

Now, understanding that tonight’s debate will be a fair one, this is what each candidate will do. Biden will talk about the issues and try to focus any criticism towards McCain, and go easy on Palin. He will keep his answers short in order to prevent any mistakes. Keeping his answers short is also a way to entice Palin to talk more. The last two interviews featuring Palin have caused some controversy as to whether or not she is ready, due to some trouble she had answering some pretty easy questions. Also, after she had answered some questions durring the Katie Couric interview, Couric remained silent causing Palin to grow anxious. Palin then tried to fill the void with more words, which caused Palin to slip up and say some things that contravene what John McCain has said. This is exactly Biden’s plan tonight, to try to extract the same mistakes from Palin. Biden will do well, but he is not going to play offense tonight. He will not be in attack mode, for fear of being viewed as patronizing or talking down to Palin. He will, however, point some fingers at John McCain.

Palin’s task tonight is quite the opposite. She will be the attack dog once again. She will use every opportunity to attack Obama and go after Biden. Both candidates have been preparing all week, and in order for the McCain-Palin ticket to make this a close competition November 4th, Palin needs to do very well tonight. On the issue of foreign policy, she will admit to not having the experience that Biden has, but will point out flaws in Obama’s and Biden’s history on foreign policy. The focus of these attacks will more than likely be that Obama was agaisnt the troop surge and has denied that the surge has worked. Palin will also try to pick up where McCain left off at the Presidential debate last week. She will continue to push the issue that the Democratic ticket just doesn’t get it, when it comes to the important issues. We probably will not hear Biden say once that Palin is right, as Obama said about McCain.

After the debate, each party will begin spinning the story in thier favor. Each party will say they won the debate, unless there is an obvious slip up by one of the candidates. If Palin makes even the slightest mistake, it will become front page news. However, if Biden slips up nobody will pay any attention to it and dismiss it as one of his gaffes he is well known for. With the media backing Barack, Palin needs to put on a flawless performance in order to rally up some more support, the way she did at the RNC. If she fails to do so, it could be the end of the road. With Obama pulling away in the polls, McCain needs to start making up ground, and he needs to do it quick.

Biden needs to keep attetion off himself and put the attention back on Palin and McCain. Palin needs to just relax, and just be herself in order to win tonight. I believe that given the preparation for the debate tonight both candidates will perform well. Palin prepared for a week for the RNC and knocked that speech out of the park, lets see if she can do it again tonight without a script in front of her.

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