The Expectations Game
THE EXPECTATIONS GAME....Time's Karen Tumulty says that Sarah Palin was very good in her 2006 gubernatorial debate and offers this advice:
That's why Joe Biden should be wary, especially since she will have expectations very much in her favor.
I know this is a dumb question, but why exactly should expectations be in her favor? It's true that she's going to be relying on four weeks of intensive briefing rather than a lifetime of experience, but high school juniors do this in debate competitions all the time. There's really not much reason to think that's a big problem. And all the other critiques of Palin (Bridge to Nowhere, Troopergate, book banning, tax raising, lack of vetting, etc.) have nothing to do with whether she's likely to be effective in debate.
Conversely, it's almost universally acknowledged that (a) Palin is a natural politician and a good speaker, (b) she has a nice folksy manner, (c) Biden has a lifelong habit of running off at the mouth, and (d) he's going to have to walk on eggshells to keep from looking like a boor who's hammering away at a poor little housewife from Wasilla. Given all this, why is the press once again playing the game of insisting that the Republican candidate will be the de facto winner if she merely avoids catastrophe? I mean, I know that's the spin coming out of Steve Schmidt's shop, but it's not really true, is it? The fact is that, all things considered, Palin is the favorite in this contest — though perhaps also a bit of a wild card since catastrophe is always a possibility for someone so new to the national stage.
In any case, this game ought to cease. There's simply no reason that Palin's expectations should be low for October's debate. If anything, it probably ought to be the other way around.
Comments
I have sympathy for all the politicians having everything they say all day recorded and discussed, but the following statement by Obama at the Bon Jovi mansion fundraiser seems to reflect that "elitist" strand that people see in him -- he is complaining about private airplanes, staying at fancy hotels and eating high priced food, when many Americans would love to get a taste of that life:
"I hope you guys are up for a fight. I hope you guys are game because I haven't been putting up with 19 months of airplanes and hotel food and missing my babies and my wife ? I didn't put up for that stuff just to come in second."
I have sympathy for all the politicians having everything they say all day recorded and discussed, but the following statement by Obama at the Bon Jovi mansion fundraiser seems to reflect that "elitist" strand that people see in him -- he is complaining about private airplanes, staying at fancy hotels and eating high priced food, when many Americans would love to get a taste of that life:
"I hope you guys are up for a fight. I hope you guys are game because I haven't been putting up with 19 months of airplanes and hotel food and missing my babies and my wife ? I didn't put up for that stuff just to come in second."
First of all, if Biden said Palin was good looking, I'd like to see the context. I've seen newspaper columnist say that she gives him "a thrill up her leg," and that seems as about as unprofessional as you can get without being explicit.
Second, Lithwick's advice seems good, even if it's for the wrong reasons. By being simple but relentless on McCain, he'll avoid looking like he's attacking Palin but also hurt her at the same time. It's possible to do this by making her look like an ignorant fool in the process, but it has to be quick and about some topic that doesn't sound irrelevant or incomprehensible to the people at home.
I don't think expectations are low because she's a woman: Clinton would have had very high expectations. I believe that qualifications are low because of her inexperience and her folksy manner.
For all the talk on the right how she's "qualified," you'd think that she was the MOST qualified Republican waiting in the wings... The Democratic response to her speech and their handling of her has been right: they have been systematically raising expectations for her future debate performance (shrewd). Let's hope the press follows-along and doesn't give her a pass because she's basically just an Alaskan hockey mom who likes to eat mooseburgers (obviously qualified to lead the nation).
"There's simply no reason that Palin's expectations should be low for October's debate. If anything, it probably ought to be the other way around."
It's important to remember that Tumulty (and this isn't meant to be insulting) is speaking on behalf of the rest of the media, as if she's not part of it. She's saying that everyone else will think this, so this is how it's going to be.
Given all this, why is the press once again playing the game of insisting that the Republican candidate will be the de facto winner if she merely avoids catastrophe?
Talk about the soft bigotry of lowered expectations . . .
In any event, four weeks of briefings may help her with some of the facts, but it will not help her with an understanding of the issues. It's like cramming for an exam. You'll gain knowledge of facts, but have nothing to offer viz a viz insight.
As long as the judgment frame remains, authenticity, Biden has no chance, unless Sarah breaks down on the stand and confesses. The problem is that authentic, and intellectual are mutually exclusive things. So unless we can change the frame to something like: who will have the best chance of not being checkmated by Putin in the game of geopolitical chess, we are doomed.
Every four years, we go through the same depressing spectacle.
The press peddles Republican talking points (Al Gore claims he invented the internet, ad nauseam.)
And in response, the Republicans cry and whine about media bias.
This year, it's appallingly worse, as the media has a creepy love affair with the Alaska governor.
Republicans claim, with a straight face, that the Alaska governor is qualified to be president.
And everyone, everywhere, knows it's a lie.
And now the war on "elitism", which is really a war on intellect and thoughtfulness.
And yet, all we seem to be able to do is to sit back and watch the entire ugly, depressing spectacle unfold in all its surreal, horrible, infantile glory.
The Republicans have nominated Britney Spears for vice president.
I guess it might turn out to be genius - in spite of the fact that it's also evil.
As always, the problem here is the press attempting to gauge how folks will react to the speech and reporting on that - this kind of metacoverage - rather than simply reporting on what was said and whether or not it bears any relation to reality. But, of course, that's unlikely to change anytime soon.
Kevin,
Unfortunately for Biden, the expectations game was lost in the first few days when every Democrat commenting anywhere claimed she was unqualified to be vice president, and that this would be revealed as Biden destroyed her in the debate.
Wasn't there a West Wing episode where Bartlett was preparing to debate a folksy, Bush-esque Republican and everyone kept telling him to dumb it down because America doesn't like a smart guy? If I recall correctly, Bartlett wound up ignoring their advice and really stuck it to his opponent because, well, smarts, education, and experience are things we should value not just in our leaders, but in society as a whole. I really hope Palin gives Biden an opening to drive that point home.
Yancey: Lots of Democrats said she was unqualified, but I don't recall any of them saying Biden would crush her in the debate. In fact, just the opposite. The conventional wisdom all along has been that Biden has to be very, very careful because otherwise he'll look like a bully.
Yancey, does it make any difference that she actually IS unqualified?
As to the debates, as usual, the 'liberal' media is spinning like a top. I'm hoping (nothing wrong with hope, is there?) that this time they'll spin their damned wheels off, and we'll be rid of them.
How about ALL GAMES cease! Instead of the continuing pontificating on all leftie blogs how about some really good suggestions to motivate the readers to ACTION...we're not going to get it from OBAMA and COMPANY...so can we stop whining and put together the things that people need to see read, research, check out, and begin sending them ad nauseaum to everyone we can whether they want to get them or read them or NOT!!! How about a BLOG that does that work...puts things together and all you guys LINK to it!
Those of us in Alaska, have never had low expectations. I fully expect her to make Biden look like an idiot. The public will love her.
It's the left blogs that have called her a lightweight.
Additionally, whatever happened to this point of view from Mr Drum.
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2008/08/more_reaction_to_palin.html
"That's all for now. Conservatives on the tube are really, really struggling to defend this choice. I almost feel sorry for them. I'm sticking to my guns that before long this will be seen for the debacle it is."
"The conventional wisdom all along has been that Biden has to be very, very careful because otherwise he'll look like a bully."
And that's the most infuriating part of it all. The expectations game is something that both sides work with and against, but that's part of life. The idea that Biden should be restrained is absurd. She's asking to be in a position that's pretty damn serious. Why in the hell, regardless of her stature, should she treated softly? I'm not saying Biden should be unfair or a jerk, but the candidates pounding on each other in serious ways. One of the most appealing parts of Clinton's candidacy was that she had a bigger set of cajones than most Democrats on the national stage.
Via atrios, it looks like she doesn't know her Fannie Mae from a hole in the ground:
Speaking before voters in Colorado Springs, the Republican vice presidential nominee claimed that lending giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had "gotten too big and too expensive to the taxpayers." The companies, as McClatchy reported, "aren't taxpayer funded but operate as private companies."
Kevin,
I read dozens and dozens of comments here and elsewhere in the leftosphere about how Biden was "licking his chops" waiting for his chance at her. This is how "conventional wisdom" gets set. I don't why they come to believe this, but it is what it is.
The Alaska governor's acceptance speech is the perfect example.
Her voice was grating, her delivery was annoying, more like a lecture from your mom, hell, half the time she was wagging her finger at America while she scolded us for all things modern and thinking and liberal.
The text of the speech was mean, ugly, full of mockery and sneering put-downs.
Not to mention the lies.
And yet, the reaction from pretty much everywhere, even from liberals, "serious" journalists, women bloggers at Slate, everywhere, was that the speech was a huge success, and delivered perfectly.
I keep thinking, the Republicans have some sort of mind-control machine in some mountain somewhere.
God help us.
cmac,
What does "qualified" mean to you? I have yet to have anyone give an answer to this that doesn't disqualify Obama himself.
To me, the qualifications should be that the candidate has been a leader of others for a significant period of time (five years or more) in which he/she has demonstrated reliable judgment.
Of course, on that score, it might be said that no one in this campaign is "qualified". This is one reason I favored someone like Sebelius for the Democrat VP, and M. Whitman for the Reps.
By the time of the debate, I expect Palin to quite prepared for a vigorous debate. I think Biden should come out swinging, I just don't think he has it in him to do so, and it has nothing to do with the conventional wisdom that he should avoid being a bully- it just isn't in his personality.
Tumulty is not saying that Joe Biden needs to be "wary" of Sarah Palin.
Tumulty is telling Joe Biden that he needs to be wary of Karen Tumulty and all the other fawning, obsequious courtiers to right-wing Republican power, who will fall over themselves to please their corporate masters and keep their huge paychecks rolling in by blasting Biden's debate performance and glorifying Sarah Palin, no matter what Biden does.
Sarah Palin will tell one brazen, sickening lie after another, and make one ignorant, dumbass gaffe after another, and the corporate media will give her a pass, just as they gave Bush a pass in 2000.
And Joe Biden had better be damned careful not to challenge her (what a sexist boor), or sigh, or roll his eyes, or even frown.
"What does "qualified" mean to you? I have yet to have anyone give an answer to this that doesn't disqualify Obama himself."
The Alaska governor isn't qualified because she is an empty vessel, a fundamentalist, and, as she showed at the convention, a hater.
Yancey, I think to be qualified one should have demonstrated sound judgment in a leadership capacity. Palin has not done that - as mayor she destroyed the finances of her small town, and as governor has embroiled herself in controversy through petty, personal vendettas. She is simply not a person I'd want to see in charge of the military.
To Rory from Alaska - the public will love her? Not likely. For all but the red-meat right-wing, she inspires at best unease and at worst, a visceral loathing. She's the mean girl from middle school. She's a nasty piece of work. She's Cheney in drag, only pettier. (And no, the word 'pettier' is not misspelled.)
Palin is a natural politician
She does spew lies smoothly.
why is the press once again playing the game of insisting that the Republican candidate will be the de facto winner if she merely avoids catastrophe?
Kevin, why do you ask questions you already know the answer to?
SecularAnimist wins best post, so far.
And this line:
"Tumulty is telling Joe Biden that he needs to be wary of Karen Tumulty and all the other fawning, obsequious courtiers to right-wing Republican power..."
is just shockingly true.
Unless there's a major shift, Palin will likely walk into the debate with Biden as part of a ticket that's leading in the polls. In addition, Palin's favorables are higher than McCain, Obama and Biden --- she's managed to turn her convention speech and the fact that she seems to have survived a media barrage into a fairly high level of popularity for someone who was unknown a few weeks ago. She's out-Obama-ing Obama at his own game.
In that context, how can anyone claim that she'd have low expectations for the debate with Biden?
I was just sitting in the barber shop next to a fairly well known North Carolina Republican who just got back from the convention. He thinks Palin is good, good, good and it will be Palin that decides the election. He says the Democrats want to ignore her but can't. Clearly McCain is a dud for the base and they needed to put some logs on the fire. McCain just doesn't do the red meat culture war very well. I suspect they calculated all this, although they did not vet her completely. They want to make a conservative celebrity to shine as brightly as Obama. The fact that she is a know-nothing from nowhere is actually a help give the anti-establishment nature of the conservative backlash. It is a mistake to think these Americans want a competent blue chip leader. They resent those who have made it into the meritocracy and they are more than a little nihilistic. This is what makes culture war politicians fire proof even when they have been convicted of crimes. They are fighting a righteous war against oppressors.
If you'd like to lighten your mood a bit:
The GOP would like to put Palin's resume up against Obama's (never mind McCain, apparently he is SO 2007) and say they're apples and apples, the level of their experience is the same, and if you believe one is experienced, then the other is just as experienced and therefore just as qualified.
And it's a load of crap.
Look at Obama's level of education. Look at what he accomplished in his youth. Look at how be built his political career from the ground up. Look at the bipartisan support, hell, the bipartisan acclaim he receives. Look at the level and quality of his education, a constitutional scholar, and yes, a community organizer, someone who got people to do s**t not because he was in charge, but because he could make them understand what was in their best interest to do...
Now look at Sarah Palin. Journalism degree? yeah, Fox news is full of them, too. Mayor? She got an Administrator to do her job, because she couldn't. Governor? Yeah, HOW many ethics violations is she being investigated for?
The GOP knows that government is convoluted, and if they can present candidates who don't much care for the convolution they themselves helped create to their benefit, it plays well to the "tell me how government works daddy/mommy, me too stupid to understand it" mentality. And then the people they get elected, proceed to use their ignorance of how government works to trample over all of us. When you elect people who don't know how government tuns, to run our government, you get Bush. Yeah, that worked out well lo these past 8 years, didn't it?
I'll give Palin THIS much credit, I'll go to her before Obama if I need survivalist training. Of course, with someone like Obama at the helm, the odds that we'll all need surivialist training is much much less, because America just might aurvive the cruel incompetence of Bush/McCain/Palin and others of their ilk.
"The Alaska governor isn't qualified because she is an empty vessel, a fundamentalist, and, as she showed at the convention, a hater."
Jeepers - right after I wrote this, I realized these are EXACTLY what makes her qualified as the Republican VP!
I think the debate is going to turn on the follow up questions, if there are any. I think she's going to do fine on the questions, but it's the follow up where the nuance is and where the actual knowledge comes out. So we'll see. I think it really is going to depend on the debate format.
Yancey Ward wrote: "What does 'qualified' mean to you?"
For starters, it means someone who does not have Sarah Palin's record of mismanagement, incompetence, negligence, corruption, ideological extremism, divisiveness, and vindictive abuse of power.
Reasonable people can disagree over what constitutes appropriate "qualifications" for the vice presidency, or even the presidency.
But reasonable people cannot disagree that we should start by ruling out the obvious cranks, crooks and thugs -- like Sarah Palin.
"For all but the red-meat right-wing, she inspires at best unease and at worst, a visceral loathing." - cmac
cmac you are wrong here. I'm a lifelong dem, and I disagree with 100% of Palin's positions. But I'm not viscerally loathing her. And I don't think that the general public feels that way either. She gave a good speech, she's come out swinging, and she's given McCain a bump in the polls.
It's only the nuts on the far left side of the blogosphere that are feeling hatred. And that's only because they know that they will finally have to give up their cherished seats in front of their computers, actually have to hoist their fat a$$es up, walk outside, and stump in their neighborhood and the one just beyond in order to ensure that their candidate will win.
The rest of us have been doing this all along.
This thread is hilariously bipolar. "Why should she be seen as the underdog?" vs. "She's shockingly unqualified!!!" (w/ bonus "level of education" mention to tip the scales towards Obama on this point).
Yes, I see the obvious rejoinder coming re: doing well in the debate has nothing to do with qualifications. But that's an awfully convenient position, and not generally accepted. Why do we look forward to the debates as a key moment in the campaign, if they reveal nothing about the candidate's relative preparedness for the presidency?
If you all are remembering the 2000 and 2004 elections, also remember the election of 2006.
It wasn't a Presidential year, but Rove's tricks just didn't work. The narrative had changed from the previous elections and an awful lot of Dems were elected to both the House and Senate.
I'm hoping the new narrative will keep up this year and elect a President and even larger majorities in Congress.
If you think Governor Palin has excited the Republican base, she's done a pretty good job of rousing our base, too. More than $10,000,000 was donated to Obama/Biden in a 48 hour period last week.
Palin HAS gotten the Religious Right in play. How large are they now vs past elections? Don't forget, they were part of Bush's wins in his previous two elections. We have to counter the Right's renewed enthusiasm with that of our own.
Keep working, guys. This victory is NOT going to be easy for Obama. It never was.
She'll just answer every question with a variation on one of the following: "lower taxes," "drill, baby, drill" or "the surge worked!"
Economy: Lower taxes = more jobs
Energy: Drill, baby, drill = independence from foreign oil
Foreign policy: The surge worked = proof to the world that Bush was right all along and pre-emptive attacks are the way to go after you've made a humiliatingly poor argument for military action at the U.N.
And those answers will be completely adequate for about half of all Americans. Our fate depends on whether that is 49% of Americans, or 51% of Americans.
I know this is a dumb question, but why exactly should expectations be in her favor? It's true that she's going to be relying on four weeks of intensive briefing rather than a lifetime of experience, but high school juniors do this in debate competitions all the time. There's really not much reason to think that's a big problem. And all the other critiques of Palin (Bridge to Nowhere, Troopergate, book banning, tax raising, lack of vetting, etc.) have nothing to do with whether she's likely to be effective in debate.
If you think that 4 weeks of briefing makes a good debater indistinguishable from a "foreign policy expert" who has been in the Senate for three decades, then perhaps experience isn't the big deal you make it out to be.
I think that if a well briefed high school debater came anywhere close to being matched with an expert on any topic, (an expert with Biden's communication experience), the expert will trounce the debater.
To me, qualified means surrounding yourself with world-class experts, ivy league advisors, 5-star generals, etc... and still being the sharpest, toughest, smartest person in the room.
Prerequsites are a demonstrated interest in American history, world history, economics, foreign policy and the judiciary. All others need not apply.
Optical, I offered a range of reactions; you seem to have skipped right over the 'uneasy' end of the scale. Still, the loathing isn't limited to far-left-side nuts in the blogosphere. I'm hearing some strong reactions from (admittedly moderate) Republicans who are sick of Rovian politics. She's not a good thing for this country. She's divisive and her policy positions are simply idiotic. Drilling in ANWR can bring down the price of oil? (It might bring it down for a minute-and-a-half, until the oil companies remember there's money to be made by gouging us.) Climate change is unaffected by the tons of carbon dioxide we pour into the air every day? (Even Bush has given up on this idea.) Creationism is a viable alternative to evolution? (I like that one a lot - she reportedly had an amniocentesis during her pregnancy with Trig. What science does she think that test is based on?) Abortion should be banned even in cases of rape and incest? (This is a fringe position.)
Off the subject, but I'm curious - are there a lot of lifelong Dems out there who buy the rightwing line on liberal bloggers?
To me, qualified means surrounding yourself with world-class experts, ivy league advisors, 5-star generals, etc... and still being the sharpest, toughest, smartest person in the room.
Who are you talking about? Obama? The guy is a walking gaffe machine.
I read dozens and dozens of comments here and elsewhere in the leftosphere about how Biden was "licking his chops" waiting for his chance at her. This is how "conventional wisdom" gets set. I don't why they come to believe this, but it is what it is.
Shorter Yancey Ward: conventional wisdom is whatever I say it is.
Palin doesn't matter. She's a sideshow. If the Obama team is shrewd, Biden's task in the debate will be to focus exclusively on McCain, and to shred his positions mercilessly. Nobody's running against Palin -- the case to be made is against McCain & his real running mate, George Bush.
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