Date: 02 Oct 2008 08:41 Subject: Let Palin be Palin Security: Public Music: Sam Cooke, "What a wonderful world"

All of the horrific Sarah Palin moments we've seen in the same week come from the same interview. It's at least possible that she got rattled early on and never recovered -- this would explain her fluffing the easy "what sources do you read" question. The McCain campaign has leaked that Palin was improperly prepared, having been stuffed with talking points and having her competence doubted, both internally and in the external handling of her speaking events.

Let's assume all of that is true. What will Palin need to succeed in tonight's debate?

• Charm. Easy charm is what got Reagan through his second debate after his disastrous first. By all accounts, Palin has this in spades.
  
• Smoothness. A successful politician needs to be able to make a smooth and easy transition from the question s/he was asked to the question s/he wants to answer. This is a foundational skill -- it saves you from speaking unpleasant truths. Palin has been very, very bad at this in her interviews since being nominated; she freezes, then spouts her talking points without making a connection to the question she was asked. She was very good at this skill in the Alaska debates.
  
• A fund of more-or-less related anecdotes and/or facts. Again, Reagan was a storyteller supreme; he could talk about "welfare queens" until the sun went nova. So far, Palin has shown a very narrow set of facts to build on. The word from some of the Alaska debates is that she was well prepared on some crucial Alaskan issues; it's unclear so far whether she has the breadth of knowledge to supply plausible near-answers to Presidential questions.

I'll be watching, fingers crossed. The question is not whether Palin can appeal to the intellectuals -- she's already lost that audience, even on the conservative side. The question is whether she can appear to be a competent and smooth likable person.

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Date: 02 Oct 2008 10:08 Subject: And there was great rejoicing Security: Public Mood: squee

I just discovered that there's a new Dar Williams and a new-to-me Girlyman live album, the latter containing their killer version of "Son of a Preacher Man".

I'll be sitting right here waiting for the mail to arrive, thanks.

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Date: 02 Oct 2008 17:59 Subject: Palin/Biden: liveblogging Security: Public

Until I have to throw something, anyway.
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