Several weeks ago, long before she proved herself incapable of answering simple questions posed by marginally inquisitive journalists, Sarah Palin’s most distinguishing fault was her undeterred ability to stand before affectionate crowds and invent a political narrative to which she was not entitled. With excruciating regularity, Palin lied about her position on the “Bridge to Nowhere” — a comical distortion that reflected, perhaps, a belief that the internet does not actually contain information pertaining to Alaska. More broadly, she demonstrated a great capacity for autobiographical oversimplification, whinnying about her record as a budgetary “maverick” who sallied forth against Congressional earmarks, who functioned as wolfsbane to the entrenched powers in Alaska, who salted the earth where reckless spending had once flourished.
Little of this withstood informed scrutiny, but for a brief moment, the demoralized conservative base of the Republican party gibbered with delight. With a desiccated John McCain in tow, Sarah Palin — hockey mom and renowned gobbler of moose meat — was momentarily enshrined as the future of the Republican Party. Red blood coursed once more to the extremities of conservative America, and barbaric yawps resounded from its oxygen-starved lungs. They had seen the future, and its name was Sarah Palin.
Within two weeks, as everyone knows, the bubble collapsed as the candidate revealed herself to be somewhat witless. Palin’s few unscripted public moments bore less resemblance to the English language than to the old surrealist parlor game called the Exquisite Corpse. A self-avowedly voracious consumer of news, Palin was strangely unable to describe and evaluate the Bush Doctrine — a “worldview” that was, in fact, responsible for her own son’s deployment to Iraq. Nor could she discuss with any coherence at least one of the major branches of government. When asked at a town hall meeting about her signature issue — oil — Palin coughed up a verbal hairball that was both opaque and deeply misinformed. And on it went, saecula saeculorum.
And so Palin’s advocates are understandably delighted by her performance in last night’s debate, which did not actually produce the widely-expected fiasco. Palin completed a surprising number of her sentences, and she showed evidence of having successfully assimilated lengthy portions of her stump speech. She was clearly excited to discover that she could recite the occasional facts and figures, and she drew attention to these achievement several times. Visibly and audibly nervous through much of the conversation, Palin nevertheless managed to keep smiling and striking the populist dulcimer, using phrases such as “darn right,” “doggone it,” and “heck of a lot” while trumpeting the virtues of “Joe Six Pack” (a strangely inappropriate metaphor coming from the governor of a state with some of the worst alcohol-related problems in the nation). In all, Palin heroically exceeded the lowest performance expectations in the history of vice presidential debating. To point out that Palin committed a number of gross factual errors — on Afghanistan, on the role of the vice president — seems uncharitable somehow.
It’s likely, though, that Palin’s surprisingly non-cringe-inducing performance will have minimal — if any — effect on the shape of the race. Unlike party conventions, which historically produce significant polling gains for candidates, presidential “debate bumps” typically range from 1-2 points, with vice presidential debates mattering even less. Whether or not Sarah Palin’s nomination reinvigorated the Republican campaign for a few weeks in early September, John McCain received in the end a fairly routine post-convention bounce that dissipated, predictably and coincidentally, right about that Palin began speaking in tongues. To the degree that Palin succeeded in the debate — and initial evidence indicates that “success” does not equate with “winning” — we won’t be treated to a replay of the early September triumphalism that credited her with bearing McCain aloft to victory on a sedan chair. Indeed, as Megan McArdle noted, the “persuadable voter” for Palin plummeted each time she mentioned John McCain’s name.
If, as Nate Silver surmises, the debate signals the end of the “Sarah Palin chapter of the campaign,” we’ll soon be able to add her to the list of irritating one-hit wonders — like “The Macarena” or “Rock Me Amadeus” — that we’d just as soon never hear again.
http://minnesotaindependent.com/11512/the-vp-debate-from-sarah-barracuda-to-sarah-macarena
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