The V.P. Debate: What to Watch for

The V.P. Debate: What to Watch for
By Katharine Q. Seelye






What to watch for tonight?

What's not to watch?

The debate between Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware and Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska should be fascinating on every level — from substance to style, soup to nuts.


Video

The much-anticipated show starts at 9 p.m. Eastern and runs for 90 minutes. We'll be carrying the video live on nytimes.com and of course live blogging.

Here are some things we'll be watching for:

Who looks presidential?

The whole point of the debate is to see if each of these candidates is prepared to be one heartbeat from the presidency. Look at everything through that lens, from policy prescriptions to body language.

How do Ms. Palin and Mr. Biden greet each other on stage?

We were mistaken and reported earlier in this space that the debate would be a sit-down affair, which is something the McCain camp wanted because the more intimate setting might have made it harder for Mr. Biden to attack Ms. Palin. But it turns out the two will be standing at separate lecterns.

One change in the format from the presidential debate last week is that the candidates will have shorter time periods in which to speak. They will have 90 seconds each in which to answer questions from the moderator, Gwen Ifill, who will then guide a two-minute discussion on each topic. The 90 seconds is seen as a benefit to Ms. Palin, who tends to give short answers anyway, and the two minutes gives Mr. Biden room to run. The stand-up format avoids the awkward moment that could arise if the two were seated and Mr. Biden had to decide whether to pull out Ms. Palin's chair for her , a gesture that could in this context appear patronizing.

Regarding Ms. Palin:

Polls show that an increasing number of people think she is not qualified to be vice president. Will she try to counteract that impression by just keeping her head down, or will she try something dramatic? Will she go after Mr. Biden, or wait to see if he goes after her first? Something dramatic is probably a clue that Senator John McCain, who named Ms. Palin as his running mate a month ago, thinks he's in trouble.

If she blunders, she won't necessarily sink the ticket's chances in November, but it sure would reinforce the story line that he exercised bad judgment by picking her in the first place.

Her level of preparation should be evident early on. Watch to see whether she can answer questions with a specificity that has so far eluded her in TV interviews.

And look for her to try to shift the focus to the top of the ticket, both to Mr. McCain and to Senator Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee.

It will be interesting to see what arguments Ms. Palin tries to make against Mr. Obama. Mr. McCain's chief line of attack in his debate last week was that Mr. Obama didn't understand foreign policy, that he was a naïf on the world stage. Ms. Palin is not well-positioned to make that argument. How she portrays Mr. Obama tonight will give some idea of the McCain strategy between now and Election Day.

Ms. Palin has been referring to herself lately as Joe Six Pack. This is an attempt to cast Mr. Biden as a creature of Washington and lay the groundwork for her to deflect policy questions — she may not know how to fix the nation's financial system but she knows the price of diapers and gasoline. Watch for her to emphasize that she understands the needs of people like you.

Finally, how does she handle the pressure?

Who wouldn't be nervous, right? Ms. Palin has said that she didn't blink when Mr. McCain picked her as his running mate. Now is the time for nerves of steel.

Regarding Mr. Biden:

He's under a microscope too, but he has a bit more leeway.

Polls show that unlike Ms. Palin, Mr. Biden, who is chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, has passed the commander in chief test. But they also show that he is less "likable" than Ms. Palin.

That presents him with an interesting challenge, and the fact that she is a woman deepens his conundrum.

Adding to it is this: Ms. Palin had such difficulty in her string of interviews with Katie Couric on CBS that some viewers may already be feeling sympathy for her. The slightest indication by Mr. Biden that he is lording anything over her could create a backlash.

On the other hand, he can't underestimate her. They didn't call her "Sarah Barracuda" for nothing. She has been playing up her youth and energy lately.

Watch to see how Mr. Biden calibrates all this. After so many pundits have warned him against overplaying his hand, it would be a surprising failure of discipline if he did so.

Still, Mr. Biden has a tendency to claim a monopoly on the truth. And we all know he is long-winded. Much of his success tonight will depend on how much he can keep himself in check.

Look to see how much he takes the better-be-safe- than-sorry path and keeps his focus on Mr. McCain.

Flashback:

By the way, NBC's "Today Show" aired a fascinating joint interview Thursday with Geraldine Ferraro and former President George H.W. Bush, the stars of the first debate with a woman who was the nominee of a major party. They sat together in Kennebunkport and talked about their singular moment on the stage, in 1984.

That much-replayed moment occurred when Mr. Bush said: "Let me help you with the difference, Mrs. Ferraro, between Iran and the embassy in Lebanon." Mrs. Ferraro shot back: "I almost resent, Vice President Bush, your patronizing attitude that you have to teach me about foreign policy."

In the interview, Mrs. Ferraro offered some advice to Ms. Palin.

"Be careful to respond with substance rather than a flip remark," Mrs. Ferraro said. The only thing people remembered from her debate, she said, was that she upbraided Mr. Bush. "I was very substantive and nobody looked at that," she said.

Mr. Bush admitted to having been nervous about facing a woman and said Mrs. Ferraro's response to him "was a good line." He said of Mr. Biden: "He's going to have his hands full. If he's seen as a chauvinist or bully or piling on, I think women would resent that. So would men."

It was striking to see them sitting together so easily, their body language relaxed and comfortable. And after all that!

Theirs remains the most-watched V.P. debate in history, when 56.7 million people tuned in. That's more than the 52.4 million who watched last week's presidential debate (O.K., it was a Friday, the worst TV night of the week).

But with the anticipation surrounding tonight's match-up — and the sky-high curiosity about Ms. Palin — this has the potential to be a bigger draw.

Check back here early and often and chew it over with us.

More:
http://thecaucus. blogs.nytimes. com/2008/ 10/02/the- vp-debate- what-to-watch- for/?hp

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Tommy