Underestimate Palin At Your Own Peril

There was a sketch years ago on Saturday Night Live where Ed Asner played a retiring nuclear power plant manager advising the remaining plant employees...

"You can never add too much water to a nuclear reactor."

The workers smile and nod, then debate what Asner meant. Did he mean that you had to limit the amount of water or...you did not?

If you chose wrong, devastation of an unimaginable sort would ensue.

Thursday's Vice Presidential debate sets up the same READ THE REST OF THE POTENTIALLY DEVASTATING POSSIBILITIES HERE

TV writer, Steve Young, is author of "Great Failures of the Extremely Successful" (www.greatfailure.com) and blogs at the appropriately named steveyoungonpolitics.com
http://steveyoungonpolitics.com/you-can-never-underestimate-palin/

Comments

[blaqntelligence]

A palin/mccain (no mistake here) ticket is a chilling thought, made even more chilling when we recall bush/cheney were coronated (again, no mistake) twice.

[RedneckNOT]

Based on her two interviews, it would be easy to underestimate her. But that is not a mistake the Obama/Biden camp will make. She is well-versed in Alaskan issues and politics, that's a given. She is a shrewd politician, another given. There is enough evidence floating around that show her holding her own in Alaskan debates, the CNBC interview. That she does not have foreign policy experience is another given and by now no one even expects her to perform well on questions dealing with international issues. So the bar is low there but, and this is a big one, no bar is set on domestic issues that concern the average American. I for one would like to hear from her on illegal immigration, education, healthcare reform, affirmative action, crime, equal pay, ... and the list goes on.

[zanzig]

I think that everyone should prepare by watching the video of Palin being interviewed by Bartiromo - she is actually credible when talking about Alaska and resources/energy. I don't like it, but we'd better not lower our expectations too much.

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=7dIRmlXRayI

[alt01]

I think the Obama/Biden camp is not underestimating anything or anyone. I have no doubt that they are fully prepared for any possibility on Thursday, and are being very careful in publically stating that they believe that Palin is a "great debater" and that Joe has his work cut out for him.

That way, if/when she blows it, it can't be said that she was set up to fail.