The Marathon Blog by Phil Singer

Under normal circumstances, the candidate of low expectations should generally be regarded as the favorite going into a debate.  But this campaign is anything but normal and Palin’s expectations are so low that it’s going to be tough for her to exceed them unless she turns in an unequivocally bravura performance.

If the Palin that shows up tonight even remotely resembles the Palin we saw on CBS this week, it’s done.  All it takes is one 15 second moment.

We’ve seen candidates lose control of their public images before (Kerry & flip-flopper) but it’s less common to see a candidate’s loss of his or her public image be pegged directly to their intellect.  That’s what has happened in Palin’s case.  When the SNL writers can take the transcripts from the Couric interviews and have Tina Fey read them verbatim, there’s a problem.

The media is on red alert for Palin to flub and it won’t take much to push them into reporting that she did.  That’s an extraordinary amount of pressure for a candidate – Biden would be in a similar position if McCain had picked someone else since the pundits would be on the lookout for him to gaffe it up.

But while Biden’s verbosity might be fun to talk about (even if it hasn’t remotely damaged the Democratic ticket’s brand), he still conveys a sophisticated understanding of the issues facing the country and proves daily that he can step in to the top job if needed. He strikes an interesting contrast with Palin who has shown herself to be likeable and even real but has thus far failed miserably when it comes to showing a command of the issues.

If the stakes in this election weren’t so high, Palin might get away with a C or even a B performance.  But with the economy on fire, Russia on the prowl, Afghanistan in trouble and Iraq hanging on by a thread, she’s got to turn in a solid A performance on the issues – not personality – to win tonight.

UPDATE: Click here to see me contradict myself.