how do you solve a problem like sarah?

Bill Kristol is a fiercely partisan conservative commentator with, reputedly, good connections to the McCain campaign. His NYT column yesterday sounds the alarm for McCain's candidacy. Reader CA draws our attention to this passage on Palin:

McCain picked Sarah Palin in part because she’s a talented politician and communicator. He needs to free her to use her political talents and to communicate in her own voice.

I’m told McCain recently expressed unhappiness with his staff’s handling of Palin. On Sunday he dispatched his top aides Steve Schmidt and Rick Davis to join Palin in Philadelphia. They’re supposed to liberate Palin to go on the offensive as a combative conservative in the vice-presidential debate on Thursday...

In the debate, Palin has to dispatch quickly any queries about herself, and confidently assert that of course she’s qualified to be vice president. She should spend her time making the case for McCain and, more important, the case against Obama. As one shrewd McCain supporter told me, “Every minute she spends not telling the American people something that makes them less well disposed to Obama is a minute wasted."

It's not much of an exaggeration to say that Thursday's VP debate is make-or-break for the McCain campaign. Actually, it's not so much a potential Make (he'll get a boost if she does well, but it won't alter the fundamentals) as a potential Break. If she crashes - or 'Courics' - I think it will be a blow McCain won't recover from.

I think, insofar as anything will work with regard to Palin, the approach outlined by Kristol is the right one. Cram her full of new information and ask her to pretend to be something she's not - a world-class foreign affairs expert - and she will drown in her own gibberish. Let her do what she's best at and she may cause an upset.

Palin needs to find a cute way of deflecting questions she's unsure about, make a few jokes, and go straight on to the attack. It will be crude, and Democrats will cry foul, and everyone will say she lost the arguments on substance. But if she can deliver one or two memorable zingers and provoke Biden into a gaffe, Palin might just turn this into a good night for her team.

UPDATE: good WSJ report on McCain camp's new determination to 'let Sarah be Sarah'.

Comments

[Claudia Jean]

I think the chances of Thursday being a good night for McCain/Palin are much higher that partisan Democrats still gleefully rewatching their tapes of the Couric interview might expect. It seems to me that the narrative on Palin has changed in the last few days - from outrage at her inexperience and the cynicism of the pick, to something approaching sympathy for a talented politician promoted too early and rattled by her handlers on the campaign. The fact that people think it's safe to feel sorry for her suggests that they think she's been neutralised as a threat. Not so. Biden was always going to have to tread lightly to avoid the appearance that he was kicking a woman; he's now going to have to be virtually en pointe to stop it looking like he's kicking a woman when she's down. I think there's a good chance he'll be too timid with her, and she'll be able to turn in a performance that will get the base cheering for her again.

[CA]

I think you are both right on this, but I wonder how far any resurrection of Palin as an asset to McCain will benefit him outside the Republican base that she is so good at appealing to. How credible can she appear to independents and how far will charm, wit, sass and all that go to eradicating the damage she's done to her image as a capable stateswoman? Particularly if these stories coming out of Wasilla about her misuse of power have substance or legs. If those stories make much of an impact on the news cycles between now and Thursday, then it may make Biden attacking her (especially directly on those points) look less like he's attacking a woman and more like he's going at a same-old-bullshit politician.

[Marbury]

Well, I'd agree that outside of the base it's now pretty clear she isn't going to be much help. But that's not nothing: if she continues to fire them up that's a big help to McCain. Also, everyone loves a comeback, and she might just pull off the ju-jitsu trick she managed at the convention, using the heat she's been getting to her advantage. Finally: if she can force Biden into mistakes she can make this about more about him than her. Much as I like old Joe I suspect he's vulnerable to a bit of needling.

[Lyle]

I'm scared. A debate between two wildly differently prepared pols strikes me as dangerous as a martial arts match between a black belt and a white belt. I should know: One of the reasons I quit tae kwon do a few years ago is that my hesitation while sparring against folks with higher belts frequently got me mildly hurt. It was difficult for folks with higher belts to recall the nervousness and less-practiced muscles that lead lower belts to have slower reaction times and undergo mistaken maneuvers. So the black belts would immediately feel responsible and apologise, and observers might have blamed the more experienced sparring partner who 'should have known better', but I knew it was primarily my own fault. Just as Palin's green-ness might indirectly lead to what the press and/or voters might see as Biden being patronising or putting his foot in it. He must play this one ever so delicately!

[Lyle]

Hey I just saw Marbury's comment! Much more succinct way of saying what I was trying to do with my tae kwon do analogy. I hope Joe's handlers or whatever are cautioning him along these lines.

[T Harris]

It could be that anything above a miserable performance will get high marks, thanks to it not being abysmal We could also see that the Palin is unqualified narrative has become too entrenched and ANY errors, no matter how small, will be magnified and used as another way to illustrate her lack of fitness for the job.

It all depends on how she performs, and how Joe Biden reacts. He is such a loose cannon that it's impossible to make good predictions for either one of them.

The only good prediction is that this will probably be the most-watched VP debate in modern history.

[paul canning]

McCain is stuck with Palin
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/09/mccain-is-stuck-with-palin.html