The Most Anticipated Debate in Modern US Political History

I consider myself to be a person who has followed presidential elections pretty closely throughout my adult life. Maybe not Jeff Greenfield close. But more than, say, the jackass I once saw in Hopkinsville, Kentucky who had a bumper sticker on the tailgate of his truck for the local labor union right next to one touting the reelection of Bush/Cheney.

Let me put it another way; I didn't just vote for Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro a few months after I turned 18, I actually went to hear Mondale's wife give a speech on the steps of the courthouse in my college town just a month prior to her husband's catastrophic loss to Ronald Reagan. Listening to the wife of one of the least charismatic and most soundly defeated politicians in history give a speech is like asking for World Series quotes from the guy who mopped the locker room for the 1998 Padres.

And so it is with at least a moderate amount of time in my life wasted on viewing the presidential election process that I make the following declaration...this Thursday's debate between democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden and republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is the most anticipated political debate in modern US history.

Yep, hands down. Most anticipated ever. Presidents. Vice presidents. Name whatever office you like. Bill Clinton could debate the ghost of JFK over who got the most tail, and I'm not sure it would be watched as closely as what is scheduled for this Thursday night.

But these are the vice presidential candidates, you say. How could this be the main event? True, history would indicate that the debate between two people seeking a job that involves going to lots of state funerals shouldn't be too thrilling. And one could argue that there have only been only two mildly memorable events in the history of televised vice presidential debates:

1. In 1988, Senator Lloyd Bensten tells Vice President Dan Quayle that he is "no Jack Kennedy", in one of the greatest understatements and most bastardized quotes in history.

2. Retired Admiral James Stockdale, running mate of third party candidate Ross Perot, makes the aforementioned Quayle and Senator Al Gore seem brilliant, as he looks confused, fumbles with his hearing aid and asks "Why am I here?" during the 1992 debate.

So maybe we would all be hoping for, at best, some memorable quote if this debate came down to one between Joe Biden and some boring conservative blowhard like Mitt Romney. Perhaps the loose-lipped Biden would break the ice by telling BYU grad Romney that Wall Street is broker than a polygamist on Mother's Day.

But compared to what we actually may hear, such a joke or gaffe would amount to a minor footnote. Instead, we get what looks to be television magic this Thursday night in the form of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.

When I talk about the anticipation level here, it is all about Palin. The politically inexperienced governor, who has managed in barely a month in the spotlight to utter one infamously inexplicable quote after another, will step to the stage that evening with an overwhelming number of voters and pundits expecting nothing short of disaster. Palin's shockingly uninformed performances in interviews with Katie Couric and Charles Gibson likely have only her most blindly devoted supporters believing in any sort of positive outcome.

To speculate about exactly what sort of verbal blunders Palin will treat us to is wasted effort. You could have racked your brain for days and never come up with what she has already given us. That is why so many of people can't wait for this to unfold.

The McCain team has Palin at one of the Arizona senator's homes for a "debate camp" this week, in anticipation of a performance that could be the death nail for a campaign that already appears as though it has gone in the tank. While "debate camp" might sound like something where campaign aids are stealing Palin's underwear and freezing it for laughs, the stakes are actually quite high. Palin's recent performances have come as the McCain team has behaved in an erratic and bizarre way during the current financial crisis. A memorably bad performance by Palin is very likely more than the McCain team can possibly overcome.

Noted conservative columnists are saying that Palin has no longer has any business on the ticket, and commentators are speculating about who would replace her if the McCain campaign were to wise up and seek a more qualified VP candidate. But it would be a shocking thing to see Palin removed at this point. If she were to leave "to spend more time with her newborn child", it would be a lie so transparent that the damage already caused by her presence would be amplified and the entire McCain team would look thoroughly incompetent. Even a "maverick" who does the unexpected would stun the political world by admitting this huge mistake.

So instead, we'll get to settle down in front of the tube Thursday night giddy with the thought that Palin will say a plethora of things that are fodder for the next Tina Fey skit. The smart money says that the writers at Saturday Night Live will have trouble narrowing it down to which ridiculous Palinisms they include. I told family members this today and I fully expect it to be true; You will remember where you were this coming Thursday night for years to come.