The Political Voices of Women

Pre-Debate:  What Does Sarah Palin Have To Do To Win?  How do you think Sarah Palin will do tonight?  The bar has been set pretty low, but the excitement about this debate is very high.  Here are some facts, spin, and analysis from the media on what they think.  Let me know what you think in comments.

Here is a Pre-Debate Analysis of tonight’s debate between Sarah Palin and Joe Biden.

If Palin want’s to do well tonight, she is going to need to work on her answers about the Supreme Court.  Here is an analysis of how she answered questions from Katie Couric on past Supreme Court decisions…

From The Huffington Post…

Listening to surrogates and aides to John McCain on Thursday, one is left with the impression that there is no great need for Gov. Sarah Palin to actually answer questions during tonight’s vice presidential debate.

Indeed, the spin coming from McCain surrogates and strategists is that all Palin has to do is pass a sort of artificial personality test, in which she strikes an emotional thread with the average voter — question, answers, or intellectual capacity be damned.

Such were the talking points mere hours before the debate in St. Louis, which peaked with Sen. Joe Lieberman – a man not unaccustomed to the pressures of such a forum – actually proclaiming that Palin’s relative ignorance helped her relate to “regular people.”

“She’s not lived in the world of Washington, so she doesn’t know every detail of all the questions senators deal with,” Lieberman told NBC’s Andrea Mitchell. “But, frankly, that’s her strength. I think that’s why a lot of regular people out across America think she’s going to be their voice.”

From Dallas Blog…

Many voters harbor doubts about Sarah Palin’s readiness for the nation’s highest office as the vice presidential candidates face off in their only debate Thursday night. An AP poll released Wednesday found that just 25 percent of likely voters believe Palin has the right experience to be president – down from 41 percent just after the GOP convention. The debate in St. Louis against Democrat Joe Biden gives Palin a chance to overcome the doubts in her first lengthy give-and-take session since joining the GOP ticket.

Meanwhile, a politico.com story suggests that after delivering halting, unsteady performances in recent interviews with ABC’s Charlie Gibson and CBS’s Katie Couric, expectations are low for the Alaska governor.  Yet a review of Palin’s experience during her 2006 campaign for governor, when she engaged in a long series of debates with her opponents, suggests she is a more formidable adversary than is widely thought.

Here is a video recap on Sarah Palin along with advise from Bill O’Reilly on how she can win tonight’s debate…

Also See:

From On The Issues – Here is Sarah Palin on the Issues

*This post will be followed by a post on what Joe Biden needs to do to win tonight’s debate.  And, full debate coverage will also be posted here shortly after the debate.