Error: Unable to create directory /home/demockra/public_html/wp-content/uploads/2010/09. Is its parent directory writable by the server? A Different Take on the Expectations for Palin

Many of the most seasoned pundits are of the opinion that each time Sarah Palin commits another gaffe, she makes her job easier in the Vice Presidential Debate by lowering the public expectations. Certainly there are many examples in history of a less-than-stellar orator winning a debate by split-decision, for no better reason than because he or she exceeded the lower threshold that had been set for him or her. And anyone who hesitates to agree need look no further than the 2000 debate performance of the White House’s current occupant. When the public expects one candidate to dominate the other, so sayeth the conventional wisdom, these expectations leave that apparently superior candidate with the narrower window in which to perform well without dog-piling on his hapless opponent across the stage.

All of this worked in 2000 precisely because the general public had little basis for doubting Mr. Bush’s core competency to hold down the job. True, he had performed dreadfully in a series of now infamous Sunday-morning news interviews. (”I know how hard it is to put food on your family.” “Rarely is the question asked, is our children learning?” “I understand the challenges of small business: I was one.”) But the general public–or at the very least, that segment of the general public that is still undecided at the end of Setpember–doesn’t watch Sunday-morning news interviews. To them Mr. Bush was a self-confident, likable guy who was true to his word, essentially untarnished by scandal (as far as they knew), and ready to take the Lewinsky-weary country in a new direction that included big, ripe checks in the mail for everybody. Indeed in hindsight it is a small miracle that Mr. Gore fared as well as he did under the circumstances.

Governor Palin, by contrast, has burned her honeymoon capital with the media and the larger body politic–first by repeatedly lying with respect to the “Bridge to Nowhere,” even after the lie was documented, then by stonewalling an investigation started by state legislators of her own party, and finally by spectacularly and very visibly mangling her should-have-been-rehearsed answers to the interview questions being posed by the unimpeachably non-partisan Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric. By the time of the second installment of her Couric interview she was already the least-favorably viewed of the four major candidates, and shortly thereafter she was called upon to remove herself from the ticket, both by CNN’s self-appointed national conscience, Jack Cafferty, and by National Review columnist Kathleen Parker. The latter is the far more devastating blow, since Ms. Parker may not be summarily dismissed as either an Obama supporter or as a sexist in the McCain campaign’s now daily conference calls to blast the treatment they’re getting.

In the meantime Palin has continued to dig herself an even deeper hole, first by refusing to directly answer questions about her acceptance of over $25,000 in gifts, and then by seeming to contradict her boss on the subject of surgical strikes on terrorist bases in Pakistan. She’s been mocked by Tina Fey and David Letterman, and her very image alone is generally enough to start Jon Stewart’s audiences at the Daily Show into a fit of merciless cackling. If nothing else, it sure does seem like a long time ago that anyone was worried too much about what might tumble unexpectedly from the lips of Joe Biden!

To put it bluntly, the public has seen what it needs to see in order to have grave doubts about Governor Palin’s basic intellectual competency to stand a heartbeat away from the Oval Office. And those are not the sorts of low expectations upon which a candidate may capitalize. Indeed the true state of the situation is probably closer to the opposite. Barring a major surprise victory against Joe Biden, one which shows her both thoroughly in command of the the discussion and thoroughly proficient on issues that she has not thus far demonstrated any aptitude whatsoever, the persuadable voters watching the contest will undoubtedly resolve that the Alaska Governor has just officially run herself out of chances.