# Should he clean her clock? \[Obama vs. Palin in debates\] **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 19, 2010, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-he-clean-her-clock-obama-vs-palin-in-debates/561169 "2010-11-19T01:20:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2010, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-he-clean-her-clock-obama-vs-palin-in-debates/561169/121 "2010-11-19T22:17:41Z")
> [@River\_Hippie](#): > > Is it conceivable that Palin could get away without doing a debate? I don’t think so but a couple of years ago no one would have believed that a VP candidate could have gotten away without doing the Sunday morning talk shows and facing some critical questioning. Palin managed to avoid that (or was prevented from appearing). The precident was set and in the most recent elections Angle and O Donnell (maybe others) avoided any non-softball interviews as far as I saw. Granted, they lost but I was wondering today if Palin could get away with declaring the traditional Presidential debates “lamestream” and declining to participate. Such a move wouldn’t faze her base in the slightest. I think she’ll try but presidential debates have become a pretty firmly established fixture. If she completely refuses to do one, the Democrats will be able to use that as a victory - “Palin couldn’t go face to face with Obama”. ---
**Author:** ![River\_Hippie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/river_hippie/32/26_2.png) [@River\_Hippie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/River_Hippie)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2010, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-he-clean-her-clock-obama-vs-palin-in-debates/561169/122 "2010-11-19T23:49:25Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I think she’ll try but presidential debates have become a pretty firmly established fixture. If she completely refuses to do one, the Democrats will be able to use that as a victory - “Palin couldn’t go face to face with Obama”. When she was running for VP she couldn’t go face to face with 60 Minutes, Meet The Press, This Week, PBS News hour or any other respected interview/current events show where she might get some tough questions and nobody seemed to notice. Doing these shows has become a pretty firmly established fixture too. Biden, Cheney, Bush, Quail, Gore, etc. did those shows without breaking a sweat. Palin skipped them all. My gut feeling was that she would have LOVED to go on those shows and spout her gibberish but McCain’s team rightly kept her on a short leash. The Democats would rail about her skipping a debate but her base would see it as sticking it to the liberal media. All bootstrappy and mavericky and stuff. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2010, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-he-clean-her-clock-obama-vs-palin-in-debates/561169/123 "2010-11-20T00:19:10Z")
She skipped them (or more accurately the folks making the decisions decided she would skip them) because she was a relative new comer when she was selected to be McCain’s vp running mate. She didn’t have a lot of exp with politics at a national level at that point. It would be different if she actually survived the primaries and was selected to be the Pub candidate and go up against Obama. I don’t think some of you are really thinking all this thru, and what it would entail for her to go that far. Personally I think she hasn’t got a chance, but assuming she gets that far she’ll have gained plenty of experience on the national level to be able to handle a few interviews or a debate. -XT ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2010, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-he-clean-her-clock-obama-vs-palin-in-debates/561169/124 "2010-11-20T00:46:51Z")
What experince has she gained on a national level? Every bit of her media exposure since the election has been in the RWM Green Zone. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2010, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-he-clean-her-clock-obama-vs-palin-in-debates/561169/125 "2010-11-20T00:51:35Z")
And how is that not exp?? Every speech she gives in front of a crowd is exp. Every interview. She was completely green when she was selected to run with McCain. In 2 years she’ll have gained even more than she had then. It won’t be enough, but if she gets the nomination she’ll have orders of magnitude more exp than she had when she was McCains punch bunny. -XT ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2010, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-he-clean-her-clock-obama-vs-palin-in-debates/561169/126 "2010-11-20T01:01:01Z")
But she has not gained any experience at all in fielding questions from the Press or engaging with any kind of opponent, nor has her Fox News gig or any of her canned Tea Party speeches come anywhere close to substantive discussion of actual issues. Her media experience is still virtually all fluff. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2010, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-he-clean-her-clock-obama-vs-palin-in-debates/561169/127 "2010-11-20T01:09:33Z")
She ain’t gonna get thru the nomination process if that doesn’t change man. Get real. -XT ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2010, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-he-clean-her-clock-obama-vs-palin-in-debates/561169/128 "2010-11-20T01:23:48Z")
> [@River\_Hippie](#): > > When she was running for VP she couldn’t go face to face with 60 Minutes, Meet The Press, This Week, PBS News hour or any other respected interview/current events show where she might get some tough questions and nobody seemed to notice. Doing these shows has become a pretty firmly established fixture too. I think people did notice. After all, the McCain/Palin ticket lost the election. And I know a lot of people who are hardcore ultra-conservatives - people who believe Obama is a genuine Marxist and probably was born in Kenya - and many of them blamed Palin for costing McCain the election. ---
**Author:** ![BlankSlate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blankslate/32/80_2.png) [@BlankSlate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlankSlate)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2010, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-he-clean-her-clock-obama-vs-palin-in-debates/561169/129 "2010-11-20T01:35:12Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > She skipped them (or more accurately the folks making the decisions decided she would skip them) because she was a relative new comer when she was selected to be McCain’s vp running mate. She didn’t have a lot of exp with politics at a national level at that point. It would be different if she actually survived the primaries and was selected to be the Pub candidate and go up against Obama. I don’t think some of you are really thinking all this thru, and what it would entail for her to go that far. Personally I think she hasn’t got a chance, but assuming she gets that far she’ll have gained plenty of experience on the national level to be able to handle a few interviews or a debate. > > -XT For the sake of this thread we’re going with the assumption she can make it through the primaries. She would have more experience sparring with the media by then, but she still has a fatal flaw: she has no interest in actual policy. She would be prepped, tested with hundreds of questions and given tons of homework, but there will always be “gotcha” questions for someone like her. Intended or not. ---
**Author:** ![River\_Hippie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/river_hippie/32/26_2.png) [@River\_Hippie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/River_Hippie)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2010, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-he-clean-her-clock-obama-vs-palin-in-debates/561169/130 "2010-11-20T01:55:43Z")
> [@BlankSlate](#): > > For the sake of this thread we’re going with the assumption she can make it through the primaries. > > She would have more experience sparring with the media by then, but she still has a fatal flaw: she has no interest in actual policy. She would be prepped, tested with hundreds of questions and given tons of homework, but there will always be “gotcha” questions for someone like her. Intended or not. She doesn’t seem to be the kind of person that would respond well to coaching and prepping. She might go along with it but I’m guessing that she would be thinking the whole time that she knows everything she needs to and the coaching sessions would be tedious for her. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2010, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-he-clean-her-clock-obama-vs-palin-in-debates/561169/131 "2010-11-20T02:00:31Z")
> [@BlankSlate](#): > > Obama looked comfortable in that format during the 2008 race. He would only need to repeat those performances by actually answering questions and explaining his policy views cogently. All we saw from Palin was homey platitudes and recitations. I think even conservatives would agree that she would have to do much better. He looked comfortable making promises. Candidate’s write their own score card when they campaign and are judged by them if elected. ---
**Author:** ![bengangmo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@bengangmo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bengangmo)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2010, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-he-clean-her-clock-obama-vs-palin-in-debates/561169/132 "2010-11-20T04:07:37Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > Sorry, I’m typing this on my iPad from the air port, so I’m being less than clear (and probably spelling every other word wrong to boot). The part I’m not seeing is that people are going to get riled up if Obama is supposedly ‘mean’ to Palin, not that Palin might not try to play the sympathy card. If Obama trounces Palin on the issues then I’m sure she might try to play the ‘he was mean to me’ card, and I’m sure that some of her more rabid supporters might lap it up, but by and large I don’t see how it would get any traction anywhere else. This isn’t the 50’s or 60’s, or even the 80’s or 90’s…I don’t think that people think that a woman being defeated in a debate constitutes some sort of beyond the pale ‘meanness’, or that people are going to react against such a defeat because some guy beat a woman in a debate. If women are able to compete in politics (and I’d say this SHOULD go without saying) then stuff like that is going to happen…they are playing with the big kids now, so they will have to take their lumps like everyone else. And, frankly, that’s as it should be…in fact, I’m surprised it’s even a question, or that there are still people who think women need some sort of extra protection. > > Or maybe trying to follow this debate on a 7" screen has me confused and/or I’m missing something here. > > -XT The meaness is not about that of the big scary black man to a delicate white woman, because (I seriously hope and believe) that just wouldn’t fly. But rather that of the edumacated, elite, snob out of touch with reality theorist vs the real american down home just like you mama bear who has lived a real life. That of the theorist vs the pragmatist, that of the guy that was taking advantage of his “book learning” to make make the real world worker with real world solutions that work look bad. In other words, I am scared that it would play as the wordsmith and debating expert that was taking advantage of the less skilled just because he could, much like the sociopath might steal candy from a baby, not because he wanted it but simply to make the baby cry. ---
**Author:** ![BlankSlate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blankslate/32/80_2.png) [@BlankSlate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlankSlate)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2010, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-he-clean-her-clock-obama-vs-palin-in-debates/561169/133 "2010-11-20T04:20:12Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > He looked comfortable making promises. Candidate’s write their own score card when they campaign and are judged by them if elected. Your talking about campaign speeches. By format I meant in the debates. He was comfortable answering any and all questions, not just making promises. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2010, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-he-clean-her-clock-obama-vs-palin-in-debates/561169/134 "2010-11-21T01:04:26Z")
The expectations for Palin are so low that if she doesn’t fall off the stage, Fox will say she won, like the last debate with Biden. With almost 4 years of training, she will have to know something. At least you can hope. Perhaps she could stay home and tweet the answers. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2010, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-he-clean-her-clock-obama-vs-palin-in-debates/561169/135 "2010-11-21T01:26:28Z")
> [@gonzomax](#): > > The expectations for Palin are so low that if she doesn’t fall off the stage, Fox will say she won, like the last debate with Biden.. Also, what happens if she delivers a single terrific quip? ---
**Author:** ![Cyberhwk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7993a0/32.png) [@Cyberhwk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cyberhwk)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2010, 6:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-he-clean-her-clock-obama-vs-palin-in-debates/561169/136 "2010-11-21T06:47:50Z")
> [@gonzomax](#): > > The expectations for Palin are so low that if she doesn’t fall off the stage, Fox will say she won, like the last debate with Biden. [QUOTE=CJ Cregg] I can’t believe how many times I get asked what would be a win in the debates. At this point I feel like if - and only if - Ritchie accidentally lights his podium on fire does the President have a fighting chance. [/QUOTE] Life imitates art. ---
**Author:** ![iamnotbatman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/858c86/32.png) [@iamnotbatman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamnotbatman)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2010, 7:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-he-clean-her-clock-obama-vs-palin-in-debates/561169/137 "2010-11-21T07:25:58Z")
C’mon guys, is she really that much worse than Bush? I find her ditsy faux-folky over-her-head ignorance slightly less offensive than Bush’s smirky-asshole insecure anti-intellectual ignorance. I’m surprised this GD is not obviously redundant to everybody, given that we went through all of this already. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2010, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-he-clean-her-clock-obama-vs-palin-in-debates/561169/138 "2010-11-21T16:24:29Z")
> [@iamnotbatman](#): > > C’mon guys, is she really that much worse than Bush? I find her ditsy faux-folky over-her-head ignorance slightly less offensive than Bush’s smirky-asshole insecure anti-intellectual ignorance. I’m surprised this GD is not obviously redundant to everybody, given that we went through all of this already. Yeah, she is worse. She is small town in a world stage. Bush was terrible but he did not run without having some political accomplishments. He was well connected to the big powers His dad was a bad president but at least he was on the world stage. She is trying to run as an outsider. Wasilla is not the training ground for a president. She is still emphasizing her folksiness . ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2010, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-he-clean-her-clock-obama-vs-palin-in-debates/561169/139 "2010-11-22T18:19:32Z")
I really, really hope Palin runs and wins the nomination–though I think it unlikely. A. It practically guarantees a Dem victory. B. Even if she wins the race, it would be a _truly entertaining_ four-to-eight years and I can not ask for anything better from my elected representatives than entertainment. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-he-clean-her-clock-obama-vs-palin-in-debates/561169.md?page=6)