Debate Prep

Okay, here is my take on the VP Debate, granted that we are now in the fifth hour of the 10-hour pregame show for it. Both sides have a lot to lose and only one side really has a lot to gain. McCain has the potential to clinch the election with this debate, because it will be the last real opportunity for Americans to see Sarah Palin. However, if she flubs it up, he will likely lose tonight.

Of course, you also have Joe Biden, who is likely to ask Gwen Ifill (who is in a wheelchair) to stand up. His gaffe-machine brain and true partisanship will play a very negative role in the debate for him, and with Palin on the show it means that there will likely be a high television rating (at least higher than last week's snoozefest).

Sarah Palin has a lot that she can attack Biden for, especially flip-flops on foreign policy. Apparently, he voted against the first gulf war, then became its biggest supporter when it was successful. He then tried to push Clinton to take out Saddam because there would never be accurate information about WMDs until he is gone. And finally, he voted for the current Iraq War before opposing it forcefully, then supporting the Surge... How many different opinions can you have on one region of the world? And just to the East, in Iran, he's been one of their biggest supporters. He said that we should give Iran a $200,000,000 check to them a few days after 9/11. He has also voted against declaring the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization (along with Obama).

However, Biden, on the other hand, is being encouraged to ignore Palin and debate John McCain. I believe that this is also a dangerous strategy, because she has the ability to connect with viewers that Joe Biden doesn't. Biden may have some form of expertise on foreign policy (even though he got his chairmanship through seniority and not expertise), but Palin has expertise in energy issues. She will clober him, especially since he has argued against Nuclear energy, oil drilling, and recently he railed against clean coal. I hope, oh how I hope it comes up, that there is a question about global warming and the effect on the polar bears. Palin will knock that out of the water, since she has started a lawsuit to have polar bears removed from the endangered species list, because their numbers are growing.

On the experience issue, Palin should say that she has executive experience, she had to balance an 11 billion dollar budget, and she has roughly as much political experience as Barack Obama, and she is still only the bottom of the ticket, not the top like Obama. She MUST, in my opinion, bring up Biden's statement that "The Presidency does not lend itself to on-the-job training," but preface that the Vice Presidency does lend itself, and she'll be learning from the most experienced person possible. She should also cite that Biden and Obama's bad and dangerous judgments on foreign policy and the economy are not what the country needs. She can say that Obama's Georgian response changed four times, eventually leading to the response that McCain made first and stuck with. Play on Obama's indecision, his inability to actually comprehend the problems that "his" plans would create for the country, and the inability of he or Biden to be bi-partisan in anything they do.

On the bi-partisan front, she can cite that Obama recently said "I don't actually have very much influence with House Republicans" and ridicule his "Great Unifier" image, which is totally fabricated. The only unity that he promotes is that of terrorists in Iran cheering for the easy time they will have if he is President. I wonder why the world is clamoring to have him be President... maybe it's because he won't do anything without their approval. He will subject US interests to a council of foreign nations. The United States would no longer be a leader in the world, but will follow the appeasement policies of the EU and other prominent UN nations and coalitions that have, guess what, themselves as the primary interest. If there is no dominating power, they can try to assert themselves as such again. Balance of Power Principle 101. If teachers would spend more time teaching and less time wearing blue for Obama, more people would realize these truths, and we might have a better education system. But once again, I digress.

I am looking forward to the debate, because I like Palin. However, I sincerely hope that they haven't over-trained her to the point where she is uncomfortable. I also really hope Biden makes some kind of racial slur, sexist comment, or other gaffe that would completely destroy his credibility and lose the campaign. I hope Biden makes it so that the only way Obama can win is to say "You're voting for the President, not the Vice President" and himself remove Sarah Palin from the limelight of criticism. There I said it.