Palin May Find the Bubba Vote Isn't Enough: Margaret Carlson

Commentary by Margaret Carlson

Oct. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Just as every Super Bowl is going to be the game of the century, tonight's face-off between Governor Sarah Palin and Senator Joe Biden is touted as settling once and for all, well, nothing. History tells us that no one but family members cast votes for vice president.

This one should matter, given that the next president may be a 72-year-old, four-time cancer survivor who lately is behaving more like a cocky fighter pilot than captain of the ship of state. Palin could be president on Day Two, Three or Four, before she had time to learn on the job, if such learning is possible.

Palin with a prepared text on a large stage does fine. Without a script, not so fine. Expectations for her at the debate in St. Louis are at about curb level because of some rocky interviews. The press complains that John McCain's handlers have kept Palin in a cocoon when actually she's been spending every waking minute with Katie Couric, an inexplicable decision whose proponent may be looking for other work now.

No matter what Palin does tonight it may not erase the impression left by Tina Fey and You Tube clips of Couric patiently asking, ``Can you be specific?'' without success. Many of Palin's answers floated a familiar noun (experience, reform, terrorists, maverick) untethered to an object or verb, let alone a principle or a policy.

Just a routine question about what Supreme Court rulings she disagrees with other than Roe v. Wade set Palin off on a winding highway. ``There's, of course, in the great history of American rulings, there have been rulings, that's never going to be absolute consensus by every American. And there are those issues, again, like Roe v Wade, where I believe are best held on a state level and addressed there. So you know going through the history of America, there would be others.'' And that's just the half of it.

Sizing Up Russia

Surely, Palin knows that proximity to Russia as a basis for foreign-policy experience is laughable. Yet here is her explanation: ``As Putin rears his head and comes into the airspace of the United States... it's from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there next to our state.''

The performances have been so poor that several conservative pundits have said she isn't prepared for the job. Columnist Kathleen Parker suggested she step aside and cite the need to spend more time with her family, a claim that would ring truer for Palin than for most politicians who've used it.

Palin isn't likely to perform similarly in tonight's highly structured format. She's shown she can deliver zingers at earlier debates in Alaska. Even if the setting by a creek in Arizona seems low-key, the coaching has been intense by McCain's team. Their stated goal is to let Sarah be Sarah, to get her off ill- fitting talking points and on to even greater generalities like freedom, strength, prosperity, fairness.

Play the Refs

In case she bombs, the campaign has an excuse ready. Although the campaign signed off on PBS's Gwen Ifill well after it was known she has a book on race and the '08 campaign coming out in January, aides now contend that renders her a poor choice to moderate.

And let's not forget that Palin is personable, especially to Wal-Mart Moms. I'm more a Target Mom but I'd like to go shopping with her. In a Marist poll, 65 percent found her more likeable than Biden.

She described her constituency in an interview with radio host conservative talk-show host Hugh Hewitt: ``It's time that normal Joe Six-Pack American is finally represented in the position of vice presidency.''

No disrespect for Joe -- my family's full of them -- but were Palin asked to spell ``cat'' and miss by two letters, the ``base'' would likely love her more.

Winning Bubba's Heart

But Palin isn't just winning the Bubba vote. She's won Bubba himself, Bill Clinton.

Part of the explanation is that a two-term Barack Obama administration makes a Clinton restoration almost impossible. Women age in dog years, and Hillary Clinton will be 69 times seven in 2016. The other is that Bill likes Palin's type. He's spoken excitedly of her (``I come from Arkansas, I get why she's hot out there''), but in a barely audible monotone regarding Obama.

Perhaps the endless two-ways with Couric weren't a mistake. They deflected attention from McCain's sputtering: The economy is sound. No it isn't. The only way to save the country is to ``suspend'' his campaign, except for a few interviews and a New York photo-op before arriving 22 hours later at the White House to save the plan he was too busy to read.

Debate? Not without getting a bailout deal. No Deal? OK, just kidding. Back to Washington from Ole Miss because it's not right to ``phone it in.'' Arrive and spend the weekend phoning it in from his Arlington, Virginia, headquarters. To top it off, take credit for getting emergency legislation passed just before it didn't.

Tending to the Elite

Yesterday McCain said he's pleased Palin doesn't appeal to the ``Georgetown cocktail party person who calls themselves conservative,'' that her not going to Harvard ``is a plus.'' George W. Bush proved this can be a winning tactic.

Bush quietly made the elite more so by tending to their economic interests while playing up his love for Nascar Dads and barbecue. As long as you drop your g's, you can be way wealthier than Wal-Mart patrons (the Palins earn more than $200,000 a year) as long as you aspire to the same cultural class.

Obama's problem isn't only that he's black, it's that he speaks like the detached, analytic law professor he was.

With people's jobs, houses and retirement at stake, the elitist strategy might not work this time. After eight years of Bush, we may want to vote for the smart one this time, no matter where he shops.

(Margaret Carlson, author of ``Anyone Can Grow Up: How George Bush and I Made It to the White House'' and former White House correspondent for Time magazine, is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.)

To contact the writer of this column: Margaret Carlson in Washington at mcarlson3@bloomberg.net