the problem with tonight's debate, actually the problem with all the debates, is that they are deemed to be "won" or "lost" by a stupid criteria. the candidates' actual performance is compared against the bullshit pre-debate expectation of how pundits thought they would do. the candidate that beats expectations the most wins, regardless of the content of what he/she actually says.
meanwhile, expectations for palin going into this debate are extremely low. i can't imagine how they'd be any lower. the prevailing narrative now expects so little from her that if she is asked about the economy and replies with an answer that uses economic-like words, her performance will be lauded across the land. if we use the expectations scale to gauge a winner of this thing (as no doubt many will), palin has already won. get over it.
but if you can get past that, if you can push that ridiculous expectations game out of your mind, tonight's debate could be a tremendous amount of fun. both palin and biden have a knack for being unintentionally funny. we have biden, who has a long track record of making politically stupid statements on the fly, and palin, who isn't able to answer the simplest question without coming across like a student who didn't do the reading and is trying to bullshit her way through a presentation. if you can let some of that election-related stress go, i think this debate has potential to be really great.
