Fantasy debate preview – vice-presidential debates

We’ll be live tonight at 8:45 PM ET at the Voters Broadcasting Channel – see you then!

What can we expect from the debates tonight? I’m using a method inspired by ESPN. On their Monday Night Football preview show, as part of the bottom-of-the-screen crawl, they provide “projected fantasy stats” for the upcoming game. I’ve always thought this was a bit ridiculous, because, you know, the game hasn’t happened yet.

So, in the spirit of ESPN’s projected fantasy stats, I present here the fantasy results for the vice-presidential debate tonight. Stats are sorted by issue.

Unimportant wedge issues

It’s almost certain that there will be questions asked about abortion and gay marriage. The moderator, Gwen Ifill, is no extremist, but the American people will want to know where their candidates stand. The biggest fear of the Republicans is that Palin will say something that she’ll say something she really believes, but is spun in a way that is unpalatable to the American people – something like “women who are raped should be forced to bear their rapists’ children.” But these issues are so important to the Republicans and their voters that you can bet that this is the first thing that Palin is being trained for in tonight’s debate. Meanwhile, Biden will plug away to make his views heard.

Score: Palin 5, Biden 4

 

Economic Policy

Discussion of economic policy issues tend to benefit the Democrats. Palin will try to play up her experience as a small town mayor to talk about how to fix the economy. But, as Biden will surely point out, there is a big difference between being mayor of a town of 9,000 and President of a nation of 300,000,000. Biden will point to his Senatorial experience when he needs to show his expertise – but the beauty of his campaign is that if Palin accuses Biden of being part of the Washington Old Guard, he can point to Obama as an agent of change.

Score: Biden 7, Palin 3

 

Foreign Policy

Joe Biden is the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Sarah Palin thinks she lives next to Russia (Wasilla is only 4,336 miles from Moscow!).

Score: Biden 10, Palin 0

 

Style

Sarah Palin is telegenic, well-spoken, and will do a great job framing talking points. Biden will do an equally good job framing talking points – if he can keep his responses within the time limit.

Score: Palin 5, Biden 3

 

Improvisation

Joe Biden has a history of being great talking off-the-cuff. In fact, the time he got in the most trouble was when he tried to make his prepared remarks sound off-the-cuff. Sarah Palin reminds me a bit of President Bush – brilliant when she reads a speech someone else wrote, totally lost when she tries to improvise.

Score: Biden 6, Palin 1

 

Final score: Biden 30, Palin 14 (projected).

What will the real final score be? Watch tomorrow night!