The Gift of Low Expectations

Thursday, October 2, 2008 | 3:31 PM

By Sarah Scully
What if the Biden-Palin debate showdown is not the "thrilla" the Washington Post is expecting? The Vice Presidential debate is arguably more anticipated than all of the McCain Obama debates combined but not because people hope to see a thought provoking, in depth interaction on policy. No, the reason most people are looking forward to this debate is pure schadenfreude. Sure, a few are hoping that the candidates will make up for their respective goofs over the last few weeks and surprise everyone by elevating the political discourse but most are eagerly anticipating seeing either Sarah Palin draw a blank at the most basic of questions or Joe Biden sticking his foot in his mouth with some inadvertently offensive comment. Both candidates have stumbled over the past few weeks with Biden rewriting history, referring to FDR getting on the television in 1929 and Palin unable to answer fairly basic questions in an interview with Katie Couric. The campaigns have spent a great deal of time and effort preparing these two for this night so it is possible that Sarah Palin will have intelligent answers, delivered with confident charm and it is also possible that Joe Biden will show a restraint in his verbosity and refer to his opponent with deference. They may not be able to completely conceal their weaknesses but odds are these two will be much more controlled and thoughtful in their responses than we are used to seeing. For those salivating at the chance to watch Palin fall, most likely she has learned from her Couric interview and will either have sharp answers or deflect any difficult questions with a campaign message statement or a crowd-pleasing, snarky jab at Biden's expense. Even if both or one of them makes a mistake, the expectations have been set so low (it's difficult to find an article about the debate without the word "gaffe" in it) that all these VP candidates have to do, Palin, in particular, is not completely flub it to come out of it with high marks.