The Palin/Biden Debate

This will be a pretty huge night in the presidential campaign. Since the initial debate between Obama and McCain, Obama has jumped ahead in the polls by a significant margin. We’ve also seen polls showing Obama leading (by as much as 8 points) in states like Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. If Obama wins Florida on Election Night, he wins this by a landslide.

There’s plenty of time to go yet, but Obama’s position has never been stronger.

So the vice presidential debate, coming on the heels of some pretty bad press for Palin, is going to be huge. Palin’s pick has been unusually high-profile, which is exactly what McCain has hoping for. It was the campaign’s biggest gamble (so far), a high-risk, high-reward proposition. After the convention, it looked like high reward. Things have changed since then.

I expect one of two outcomes: Palin does reasonably well, holds her own, doesn’t seem overwhelmed. There’s also the possibility of a Biden gaffe; he has already said some pretty dumb things on the trail. If that’s the case, if Palin’s performance is seen as a draw or better, the media will explode with “Palin outperformed expectations!” And the doubts about McCain’s VP decision will recede. It could happen. And it could bump McCain’s numbers up a bit and make this a tight race again.

Or she could perform as she has in recent interviews and really look bad. In which case, I would expect the race to break wide open. McCain is vulnerable right now. A poor performance by his pick for VP could solidify opinion that the McCain/Palin ticket is just not the answer this year.