Sarah Palin takes to the stage propelled by a deafening roar from the
5,000-strong crowd packed into a sports hall in downtown Columbus. She
waves, neatly beehived, immaculate in red blazer and heels, and points to
the crowd, widening her eyes, pushing the rapturous reception up another
notch. “Sarah! Sarah!” they chant, waving placards that read “Palin Power”
and “Country First”.
Behind her, smiling and nodding, trails a small, grey-haired man who may be
the next President.
The Republican vice-presidential nominee has just come through the week from
hell: her lack of expertise on important policy issues has been ruthlessly
exposed in a series of interviews, in which she had waffled and squirmed.
She has been pilloried, satirised and dismissed, even by conservative
commentators, as “out of her league”.
This is the Alaska Governor's last campaign appearance before the biggest test
of her political life, the debate in St Louis with her rival, Joe Biden. She
is expected to lose.
Yet Mrs Palin's first act on the stage in Ohio is to lower expectations
further. “I have to admit Joe Biden's a great debater, and he looks pretty
doggone confident, like he's sure he's going to win.” Then a zinger: “I've
been hearing his speeches since I was, like, in the second grade.”
This ecstatic crowd does not care that Mrs Palin believes Alaska's proximity
to Russia is proof of her foreign policy expertise, nor that she can name
only one Supreme Court ruling, nor that she falters when questioned about
the Middle East, healthcare or the economy. They love her for her
extraordinary ordinariness, her winsome aw-shucks charm, her simple
conservative views and her repeated references to local sports teams.
Mona Randal, who has come all the way from Cleveland for the rally, shouts
above the reverberating noise: “I just reckon she's a real person, unlike
them Washington politicians.”
That is Mrs Palin's most powerful weapon, and it is one that she will use
ruthlessly in tonight's debate. Patronised by commentators, “victimised” by
the media, vilified by liberal bloggers, she is in a remarkably strong
strategic position: one word of condescension from Senator Biden, and her
support will rocket.
Mrs Palin's life story is exceptional, but one that millions of Americans can
immediately relate to: the self-made woman from the small town, mother and
wife, beauty pageant competitor, hunter and provider, and now an intensely
polarising force in American politics, from Mayor to Governor to
vice-presidential candidate at the age of 44.
Even John McCain seems slightly stunned by the reaction. “This is a level of
excitement and enthusiasm, frankly, that I haven't seen before. I'd like to
attribute it to me, but ...” From the moment he begins to speak, one feels
the excitement begin to dissipate.
The latest polls show that while most voters think that Mr Biden will win
tonight's debate, an overwhelming majority believe that Mrs Palin will
emerge as the more likeable person. Such is her grip on the popular
imagination, both positive and negative, that this is expected to be the
most widely watched vice-presidential debate yet.
Mrs Palin may be new to the national arena, but she is an experienced and
effective debater. Before becoming Governor of Alaska she went through a
dozen televised debates: her male rivals consistently underestimated her and
were consistently wrong-footed and then defeated.
Favouring soundbites over developed arguments, she carried coloured cue-cards
to remind herself of her views and verbally trod water when out of her
depth. Yet she was also confident, poised and telegenic: rather than address
her rivals or the debate moderator, she tended to speak directly to the
camera.
Perhaps her strongest debating skill is the ability to turn general questions
into personal stories: when discussing environmental issues, she recalls how
her daughter Bristol was named after Alaska's Bristol Bay; she will talk of
the high price of petrol, and the challenges of raising a large family while
running for office.
Mrs Palin is most comfortable, and most formidable, on home ground, and that
is where she will attempt to fight tonight's debate. But the potential
perils for Mrs Palin are huge. She has given not one press conference since
becoming a candidate, and only a handful of controlled interviews, some of
which have contained moments of excruciating embarrassment: cornered on a
subject she knows nothing about, her voice rises to a shrill bat-squeak and
she plays for time, trotting out meaningless verbiage. Her facial expression
can swiftly slip from feisty and combative to rabbit-in-the-headlights
terror.
Her last rally before going into two days of intensive debate-preparation at
Mr McCain's Arizona ranch was itself an opportunity to rehearse the sort of
direct emotional connection to voters she will emphasise tonight.
“A full tank of gas seems like a luxury these days,” she said, pressing one
important button. “Between us, we have three sons in the military,” she
added, pressing another, to a fresh wave of cheering. Even her form of
language is pure Middle American. Her husband is “my guy”. Her speech is
peppered with down-home Americanisms: “heck”, “shoot”, “aw gee”.
As the going gets tougher, Mrs Palin gets slangier: pressed by an interviewer
to provide specific examples, she will respond: “I'll try to find you some
and I'll bring 'em to ya.”
“I feel like I've known her all my life,” Mrs Randal said after Mrs Palin and
Mr McCain left the stage.
A few weeks ago Mrs Palin was almost unknown outside Alaska; she has since
been hailed as the McCain saviour, and then attacked as a liability; an
ingénue unfit for office.
In her first - and only - debating appearance she knows that she must
recapture the excitement of her speech to the Republican Convention, and
that means sinking her teeth into Mr Biden, with a smile.
She is the underdog: her best hope is to show that this particular underdog,
beneath the lipstick, is still a pitbull.
Palin v Biden
Palin game plan:
Expectations Low, after several days of gaffe-ridden interviews
Aims To make personal contact with voters even if she is no policy
expert
Tactics Refer complex questions to simple truths of small-town life: he
makes speeches in Washington, while she makes babies in Wasilla
Reasons to be worried “As for that VP talk all the time, I’ll tell you,
I still can’t answer that question until somebody answers for me what is it
exactly that the VP does every day?” (CNBC, July 2008)
Biden game plan:
Expectations More people think he will “win”, but this windy and
pugnacious orator needs to hone his answers to fit a tight debate format
that limits responses to 90 seconds
Aims Not to be seen to be condescending and not to bully
Tactics If he has to be aggressive, he should target McCain, not Palin
Reasons to be worried “When the stock market crashed, Franklin D.
Roosevelt got on the television and didn’t just talk about the, you know,
the princes of greed. He said, ‘look, here’s what happened’.” (September 22,
2008. Television did not exist at the time and Roosevelt was not president)
