Could the VP debate affect the race?

Could the VP debate affect the race?



U.S. Democratic Vice Presidential nominee and Senator Joe Biden (D-DE) and Republican Vice Presidential nominee and Alaska Governor Sarah Palin are seen in this combination file photograph. Palin and Biden share the same stage in a vice presidential debate on October 2, 2008 but the spotlight will be on the untested Palin as she tries to ease doubts about whether she is up to the job. The encounter could draw a larger television audience than the 52 million who watched last week's first debate between the presidential candidates, Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama

Andrew Glass Thu Oct 2, 4:58 AM ET
Could history repeat itself?

In a nationally televised vice presidential debate, a man who is a veteran high-office holder well-versed in world affairs is matched up against a less experienced female politician. He tries to give her a humbling geography lesson. But she pushes back, responding frostily, "I almost resent ... your patronizing attitude that you have to teach me about foreign policy."

It happened 24 years ago in an exchange that pitted George H.W. Bush, Ronald Reagan's vice president, against Geraldine Ferraro, a three-term Democratic congresswoman from New York. The Democratic nominee, Walter Mondale, had chosen Ferraro as the first major female candidate for the nation's second-highest office.

That flash point between Bush and Ferraro turned out not to really matter — Reagan and Bush cruised to victory. But students of vice presidential debates say Thursday's matchup between Delaware Sen. Joe Biden and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin could offer similar fireworks and could also be the rare exception to the historical rule — a showdown between running mates that could actually affect the dynamic of the election.

Given that possibility, Biden likely will closely study the tapes of Bush seeming to lecture Ferraro. Biden, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, entered the Senate in 1973, when Palin was six years old — an age difference the Alaska governor has not so coincidentally noted with regularity in recent days.

Said Peter Kastor, a professor of history and American culture studies at St. Louis' Washington University, where the debate will take place: "Most of these debates haven't made a difference. But this one could, depending on what they say and how close the election turns out to be. Both Biden and Palin are loose cannons. They tend to say strange things."

After an eight-year hiatus between 1976 and 1984, vice presidential debates have become a campaign staple. Although playing second fiddle in presidential politics hasn't necessarily spawned second-rate debates, most of them have turned out to be less than stellar affairs.

Bush-Ferraro was one of the few debates that remain memorable. In the 1984 event, a panelist asked Ferraro, "Despite the historic aspects of your candidacy, how do you account for the fact that a majority of women — at least according to the polls — favor the Reagan-Bush ticket over the Mondale-Ferraro ticket?

Ferraro replied, "I don't. Let me say that I'm not a believer in polls, and let me say further that what we are talking about are problems that are facing the entire nation. They're not just problems facing women."

Bush, who went on to serve four years in the presidency, later told PBS's Jim Lehrer that that debate was his "tensest" ever. In contrast to the current media scene, Bush also said, "I think a lot of the females in the press corps said, 'This was one of us.' You could hear 'em clapping [for her]."

But that debate was very much the exception to the rule. For example, the polite 1996 encounter between Vice President Al Gore and former GOP Rep. Jack Kemp, Bob Dole's running mate, delved into arcane aspects of tax policy — but not much else. It also drew the smallest number of viewers.

"My sense is that prior vice presidential debates have had a very limited impact," Gregory Magarian, a professor at Washington University's law school, said while noting along with Kastor that the Biden-Palin match could break the mold.

Normally, Magarian added, "I have a sense that voters generally ask pretty broad-brush questions about vice presidential candidates. [They want to know], is this person at least minimally qualified to be president? Does the selection of this person as a running mate reflect especially well or poorly on the presidential candidate's judgment? Beyond that, I don't think debating points or surrogate attacks on the opposing presidential candidate have a lot of impact."

Tellingly, the single most unforgettable exchange in the series — between then-Sens. Dan Quayle (R-Ind.) and Lloyd Bent­sen (D-Texas) — failed to change the election outcome. It occurred in 1988 after moderator Judy Woodruff said, "Based on the history since World War II, there is almost a 50-50 chance that one of the two men here tonight will become president of the United States."

When Quayle became Bush's running mate, critics assailed his limited political experience and his National Guard service, which kept him out of the Vietnam War.

Since he had been comparing himself to President John F. Kennedy in his stump speeches, it came as no surprise that he did so again when the experience issue came up in the debate.

Bentsen drew cheers from the audience when he said: "Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy."

That iconic exchange became a staple in Democratic TV ads, with an announcer intoning: "Quayle: just a heartbeat away." NBC's "Saturday Night Live" used a child actor to portray Quayle. Although Quayle dropped the JFK comparison from his repertoire, Bentsen's sally continued to haunt him politically.

"It just gets into a sort of a feeding frenzy," Quayle later told Lehrer. "All of a sudden, two or three days later, that becomes the line."

Still, polls failed to register a change. The Bush-Quayle ticket's solid lead held up through Election Day.

Thursday's debate, however, could be a different story, Magarian said.

"Palin's competence, or lack thereof, and how her selection reflects on John McCain's judgment, is a more serious question than any comparable dynamic in past vice presidential debates — even more so, I suspect, than with Quayle," he said. "If Palin looks in the debate anything like she looked in [Katie] Couric's interview, that could seriously add to Barack Obama's momentum."

More:
http://news. yahoo.com/ s/politico/ 20081002/ pl_politico/ 14180;_ylt= AsafAIW7CETfgsBv XkWs9Y.s0NUE

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