I think there will be a gradation where the more favorable response will come from the low information right wing, but as you move toward the center (and the undecideds) the response will become less favorable, until you get to the more informed, living, breathing, thinking and aware folks, (that’s us) where McCain’s name will be taken in vain that he even put America in this horrifying position. Overall, McCain will only lose a point or two in the polls as a result. I would place the probability of this outcome at 65%

Another possibility is that the contrast is so stark that Palin (and McCain) lose a significant portion of the few remaining thinkers on the right, and in doing so there is a precipitous drop in the polls. I would place this likelihood at more like 25%

With a bowl of popcorn in my lap, and a coca-cola in hand, I would put the odds at 100% that there will be some awesome snark to come out of the debate!  :-)

Palin has been memorizing talking points for a couple of weeks now.  She will have to massage the questions to fit her answers.  How well she is able to tie the actual question to her closest canned response will determine how well she does.

I’m going to grade her performance based on how many times I answer yes vs. no to the question:  Did she actually answer what was asked?

And I’ve been emailing others about that approach. ;)

Did she actually answer what was asked?

I just don’t know.

Yesterday, Brian Kilmeade on Fox ‘n’ Pals said that Gwen Ifill moderating is the equivalent to Todd Palin moderating. 

Because, you know, BLACK GWEN IFILL IS A BLACK AND SHE’S IN TEH TANK BECAUSE ALL BLACKS KNOW EACH OTHER AND ARE RELATED!!!!11!!

Fucking idiot.

Ifill has a reputation for asking hard questions.  She stumped Cheney AND Edwards in 2004.  I think dipshits like Michelle Malkin are well aware of this, and they’re secretly shitting their pants.  Will Ifill call Sarah Palin out for not answering questions?  Because we know Sarah Palin is going to dodge questions like bullets.  We’ll see!

By way of Sarah Palin, I will begin my prediction with a folksy anecdote from a childhood spent in a land with funny accents:

Back when I was young, I went to tennis camp. (Where I grew up, tennis is what people do instead of moose-hunt.) Having played tennis for some time, I was placed in the Advanced division; there was also Beginners and Intermediate divisions.

At the end of camp, the tennis pros held a tournament. The winner of each division would proceed to the finals, where the Advanced winner would first take on the Intermediate, and the winner would take on the Beginner, with the ultimate winner taking home the Championship Trophy.

I was thrilled to win the Advanced competition. I thought for sure I had it in the bag, as I was better than the Intermediates, and way better than the Beginners. And I did beat the Intermediate winner handily.

Then came my matchup with the Beginner. She was a friend, a girl who grew up right along the river near me. We met in kindergarten. We went to different schools after that, as she was mentally handicapped, though we still hung out some weekends. She didn’t have a backhand to speak of, and not really a forehand either—the only move she had was to lob the ball so high in the air with such ferocity that when it hurtled down on the other side of the net, you could barely see it to touch it.

For the life of me, I could not return anything she hit my way.

So, in the end, while my friend may not have gone home with a very strong sense of tennis fundamentals, she did go home with the trophy. (Which is sort of like going home with the moose carcass.)

That is how it will be for Sarah Palin. She will have learned nothing of value, have answered nothing directly, have said nothing of consequence, but she will win. Poor Biden will be so befuddled by the answers she lobs to the heavens that he will be too busy figuring out what she was saying in the first place to respond. And she will look like the underdog doing it. It’s deja vu for me, I’ve seen it happen before. That is my fear.

My hope is that Sarah Palin fails so miserably and so completely that John McCain has to stand before the nation and declare “we are all ‘Joe Six Pack’ now.”  And the nation responds with a resounding “fuck you dumb ass.” That is my hope.

For the life of me, I could not return anything she hit my way.

The whole purpose of the lob strategy is just to keep your opponent away from the net.  Firing the ball back just sets up another lob.  The best response is to lob it back yourself a time or two, wait for your opponent to fumble the return (and they will), then smash it back out of reach.  Joe Biden has been in this business too long not to have seen every strategy there is and be able to deal with it.  Honestly though, I don’t expect any huge mistakes or fireworks on either side.  I think Biden will just demonstrate that he has a much broader and deeper grasp of the issues and Sarah will find herself resorting to snark and sarcasm and Failin again. She will probably also try to get in some good zingers on Obama and that will be where Biden can come back and slam McCain.

I dunno marindenver, has Biden ever debated a utterly clueless dolt? I’m worried that she will says something so stupid that Biden won’t be able to help it and will have a laughing fit, or will do that drop jaw, “WHAAAAAA?” look. That will be twisted into Biden being a meanie making fun of Palin or something like that. Sort of how Gore’s sighs were twisted, instead of people taking note that Bush is a dumbass.