Palin: Icecap or Lehman Bros?

DENVER - Gov. Sarah Palin's candidacy is clearly deteriorating. The only question is whether the decline is more like Lehman Bros or a polar ice cap.

Palin's initial popularity could turn out to be a bubble - a delusional valuation that crashes the moment that reality reasserts itself. Critics are watching Thursday's debate for such a moment. That's when raw, unfiltered information about Palin will finally hit the political markets.

Palin's shortcomings, however, could take much longer to break through. Couple the scripted strategy of the McCain campaign with an A.D.D. press corps - distracted by everything from lipstick on a pig to the pigs on Wall Street - and Palin's looming vice presidency may bother the public about as much as global warming. Yes, some people see the inevitable disaster, but the majority thinks the problem is distant enough to be ignored.

On the Obama plane en route from Chicago to Denver today, I tried asking Obama's staff about the possible routes for Palin's further demise. A normally chatty spokesperson turned taciturn - no comments on Palin at all. During that exchange, Sen. Obama himself briefly walked through the aisle, clutching an open laptop, but he was not taking questions.

Back in Chicago, the closest Obama staffers come to touching Palin is clicking the forward button - they emailed reporters today with a scathing new column by Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria. The normally measured columnist, former editor of Foreign Affairs and one of the cooler Sunday pundits, rips into Palin as a novice disaster, a talking-point-dispensing robot full of "nonsense" and "gibberish" who is "utterly unqualified to be vice president." Amplifying that low rumble among conservative critics, he called for her early exit: "Will someone please put Sarah Palin out of her agony?"

Palin's favorable ratings have been slowly melting, and today's Washington Post reports that more heat is on the way. "The worst may be yet to come for Palin," writes Howie Kurtz, "sources say CBS has two more responses on tape that will likely prove embarrassing." If there are more memorable mistakes piling up this week, Palin will have even less room for error at Thursday's debate.

George Stephanopoulos says the stakes are high -- and he knows, since network anchors help decide who "wins" debates.

"A major mistake on foreign policy would be absolutely fatal to her candidacy," he said on Good Morning America. "She's become a problem for Senator McCain, no question about it," he explained. "When you become a punch line in politics, it is one of the worst things that can happen, and that is what's happening to Sarah Palin now."

Obama is attacking McCain in Colorado today for his gambling ties, and while no one here is saying it, the biggest bet of McCain's career is about to get called on Thursday.

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Ari Melber is traveling with the Obama campaign for The Washington Independent, where this piece first appeared. Twittering from the trail here.

Follow Ari Melber on Twitter: www.twitter.com/AriMelber

Comments

[XME]

"On the Obama plane en route from Chicago to Denver today, I tried asking Obama's staff about the possible routes for Palin's further demise. A normally chatty spokesperson turned taciturn - no comments on Palin at all. During that exchange, Sen. Obama himself briefly walked through the aisle, clutching an open laptop, but he was not taking questions."

Can you blame them for not wanting to touch that with a 10-foot pole?? They know they don't have to say one word in regards to Palin because she's doing perfectly fine imploding without their input!

[cactusgal]

I mostly don't give a crap about Palin & her debating skills anymore. McCain's circling the drain without much help from her one way or another.

[DarthVector]

Everyone going on and on about the construction of expectations, as if punditry meant anything.

Bullsh*t it does.

The Couric interviews are not "tactics" to lower expectations. One does not campaign by throwing bullets to the enemy. They are Palin in the wild - a truly endangered species.

Sarah Palin will walk out on Thursday night, stand before the people and be seen for who she is. At last. Poll results on her favorables over the next few days will be the determination. I expect a tanking. Total. Annihilation. Over and out.

[luvangelHussein330]

As an Obama supporter I'm not going to assist the GOP in lowering the bar anymore for Abuse of Power Barbie...this didtsy act is just that...an act to distract voters, media and opponents, much like the faux campaign suspension and debate cancelation.
The gop have set the bar so low that all Moose burger has to do Thursday is not drool on herself and it's a win for them. She is no novice at debating but she can hold her own. She is also spending the next two days being well trained by "experts" and has already spent time doing mock debates. Any supposed inside word that they have been utter failuers is just another attempt at lowering expectations.
Lets not be fooled and expect a battle come thrusday filled with palin'ish zingers

[birdandcat]

So Sarah Palin is the biggest laugh line since oh I don't know, Dan Quayle. Then Quayle utters the line that gets the best retorrt in the history of Presidential/VP debate by Lloyd Bentsen. and what came of it. Nothing. It didn't change the campaign one bit. so is there any reason to believe that Gov Palin's performance will affect the election. I suppose the only real difference is that MCCain is the odds on favorite to lose whether or not Gov. Palin manages to obscure her monumental ignorance with bluster. It would be surprising if a stunning performance by Palin mesmerized millions of clinton supporters to vote for her at this point.

[jeanrenoir]

I'm old enough to remember how The Silent Majority did all it could to protect Nixon right up to his confession and resignation, precisely because their own resentments and egos and shame were on the line. Because of their perennial "bitterness," the Majority of Archie Bunkers were overjoyed by Nixon's crushing of McGovern and, symbolically, the whole Counter-Culture which had called them "pigs" with him. Nixon/Agnew became their standard-bearers, the way George Wallace had taught them to be: Channel the mob's bitter, angry resentments, direct them at a scapegoat, mock the scapegoat ("pointy-headed intellectuals," Jews, or "the nattering nabobs of negativism"; the phrase hardly matters), and watch the mob swell with PRIDE and roar approval. The technique comes straight from Mussolini and Hitler, and the mob loved it again when Palin and her Rovean script worked like magic to enthrall the mob into an ecstasy of revenge against their betters in Minneapolis. So the mob will do all in its power to protect Palin as long as they can, lest they themselves be shamed yet again, and mocked by the hated, educated "elites" who DO always, and for excellent reason, disdain these yahoos. The fall of Palin and McCain will be a very, very bitter pill for the mob to swallow, especially as their financial hopes are being simultaneously eviscerated by the folly of Wall St. elites. This all sets up the ultimate redneck insult: an "uppity" black man leapfrogging over them.

[jeepsdad]

From Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip:
"Your side hates my side 'cause you think that we think you're stupid. My side hates your side 'cause we think you're stupid."