Lorem Ipsum

I'm gonna jump right to my strongest piece of evidence: An article by Andrew Halcro, who ran for Alaska governor in 2006 and debated Palin over two dozen times, titled "What It's Like to Debate Sarah Palin." He notes that Palin is a master of the crowd-pleasing nonanswer. When asked to name a specific [whatever], she ignores the question and tells folksy stories or reiterates her talking points.

So from that perspective, one possible explanation for Palin's weak performance in the Couric interview (this is my idea, not something Halcro says) is that she's not used to being backed into a corner, to being asked the same question about specific details repeatedly. When she's giving a speech or involved in a debate, she can just ignore the question or answer in (to use Halcro's phrase) "glittering generalities"; that's not so easy to do in a one-on-one interview when the interviewer pushes for specifics.

And the key thing that I think a lot of us liberal intellectuals don't get (at least, it's easy for me to forget this) is that, in a debate setting, if she gives a glib nonanswer in a way that plays to her crowd, then she gets their approval. She doesn't have to give actual answers to the specific questions posed. Her goal isn't to demonstrate her command of facts and details; her goal is to get people to vote for her. And one of the main reasons she's on the ticket is to appeal to certain parts of the Republican base, not to bring in centrist undecideds.

People like me tend to be impressed by (perceived) erudition, by nuance, by knowledge and information and cleverness. But there are a lot of people out there who are more impressed by (perceived) friendliness, by self-identification ("she's like me!"), by connection with an audience. (And for that matter, it's not like I'm immune to charisma; I'm more attracted to Obama's charisma than to his erudition.)

People like me tend to get annoyed at politicians who make a lot of verbal fumbles; I tend to feel a little outraged, like "how could anyone possibly think that person is worth electing?" But anyone in the public eye is going to have embarrassing moments--hell, someone in a comments thread on some Palin article recently linked to YouTube videos of Obama stumbling during speeches. Biden is known for gaffes when speaking; mocking Dan Quayle's problem moments didn't stop him from getting elected; for that matter, George W. Bush's syntactic manglings don't seem to have really hurt his political career, just made him an easier target for mocking. It pains me to say this, but having a weak grasp of how to put a coherent sentence or argument together doesn't, in itself, seem to significantly hurt a politician's chances of getting elected.

Another aspect of all this is the idea that Palin's fumbling attempts in the Couric interview to explain why proximity to Russia gives her foreign policy experience, or her failure to name a single Supreme Court case other than Roe v. Wade, or her vague generalities when asked where she gets her news, are typical of her speaking ability. But I think she's a pretty good speaker in other contexts. We've seen Palin be an effective and crowd-pleasing public speaker at least twice now: once at the Republican convention (and a significant chunk of that speech is specific to her, so it can't all have been written before she joined the ticket), once in Florida last week. She apparently draws big crowds (and big donations) wherever she goes.

Also, mocking her seems to help cement her fandom's adoration of her. "Look at those liberal elites, mocking our down-home candidate!"

In the abovelinked article, Halcro talks about Palin's skill in getting crowds to like her in debates, but that's not all there is to it; if you want to see for yourself, take a look at a video of one of her gubernatorial debates, from November, 2006. (She first appears around 1:15, but you may need to watch the earlier part for context.) There are various other videos floating around the web that show other clips from that set of debates. The Sarah Palin shown in those videos seems to me to be largely well-spoken, sharp and on-topic, in command of the facts. She even sometimes gives actual answers to questions. If that's how she debates tonight, then I think a lot of people whose expectations have been set by the Couric interview will be surprised.

(I should also add that although the Couric segments that have been getting the most play have been the ones in which Palin looks really inept, I've seen a couple of segments, focused on domestic issues, in which she seemed much more on top of things. Not brilliant, but not nearly as bad as the bad ones.)

Apparently it's traditional for candidates to praise their opponents' debating skills prior to debates, in order to raise expectations for the opponent. One CNN article quotes Biden spokesman David Wade as saying "He's going in here to debate a leviathan of forensics, who has debated five times, and she's undefeated." I can't tell whether that's a tongue-in-cheek attempt to damn with faint praise (five times! she's debated five whole times!) or an actual attempt to raise expectations about her debating abilities. But I love the phrase "a leviathan of forensics."

But in fact she's debated many more than five times, on the gubernatorial campaign trail, and apparently did a pretty good job at it. So don't count her out yet.

One last thing that I think is worth keeping in mind: while it's certainly quite possible that tonight's debate will give us some sound bites, some fuel for ridicule of one candidate or another, and some interesting moments, we should remember that "vice presidential debates [...] tend not be decisive," as the International Herald Tribune's Adam Nagourney puts it. Others have said that more strongly: as I understand it, vice-presidential debates usually don't affect polling numbers significantly.

Okay, one really last thing: I suspect the above comes across as me being somehow in favor of Palin, or admiring of her. That's not my intent at all. I absolutely do not want her to be Vice President, and I don't think there's anything about her that I admire. My points here are that (a) she's not as inept as she looks in the Couric interview, and (b) to the people she appeals most to, eptitude with that kind of interview isn't really the point anyway.