VP Debate

Sarah Palin owes Gwen Ifill a big basket of roses because she saved Palin's national career ambitions tonight.

No follow up questions, no calling her out for blatantly avoiding the question.

I know debates are about talking points, but Palin had like 5 to 10 talking points drilled into her the past couple of weeks, and she turned to them over and over and over and over again.

I have never seen anything like it actually.

When she wasn't doing that, she would return to the handful of topics she actually knows about: her family, Alaska, drilling for oil.

But the bar was low for Palin. She didn't give any jaw dropping stupidity tonight that she showed in the Couric interviews. But of course, she really wasn't given an opportunity to hang herself either. No rope, just softballs.

It was almost as if Fox news was doing the interview.

To be fair, Biden got the same softball treatment. But at least Biden took advantage of the time he was given to provide some substance.

Look, I like Palin. She has obvious talent and intelligence and loads of potential. She's obviously feisty, and given time to study and internalize national issues, I'm sure she would be a great spokes woman for the next generation of conservative ideas. But there's two problems, the next generation of conservative ideas don't exist, and Palin sure hasn't been internalizing anything beyond local Alaska politics.

Quite simply, it's just mind-bogglingly obvious that she's not ready for the big stage.

This is an indictment on McCain, not Palin. Palin was used by McCain as a gimmick. It was a despicable and selfish thing to do and it had (and still might) have the consequence of ruining Palin's national career.

But Palin (with a big assist from Iffil) got a pass tonight. McCain will probably lock her up as much as possible until November.

And I guess it is for the best. McCain/Palin loses, Palin goes away for a while, maybe resurfacing in about 8 years a new person, her own person.

By the way, it would be a national nightmare if McCain/Palin won this way. No way in my worse dreams could I imagine it, but it would really be mind boggling if McCain could run a presidential campaign purely on gimmicks and not a lick of substance and still win.

You would have to be a complete partisan hack or just not be paying close attention not to see this.

Unfortunately, most Americans are probably in one of these two categories, which is why this McCain is still hanging around.