I can’t help feeling that any debate with the Mama Grizzly is going to be a mess, regardless of what tactics Obama employs.
Just like with the anti-Palin partisan fanatics, anything that Obama does to the anti-Obama fanatics is going to look like either weakness or arrogance. You simply can’t craft yourself (if you are either Obama or Palin…or whoever) to appeal to everyone, and certainly not to appeal to the folks who are rabidly on the other side of the political firing line from your own position. So, what you have to do is to act in the best way you can.
Personally, I don’t think Palin is as outclassed as you seem to think she is. She has now got more experience on a national stage, and she has (presumably) good handlers and research and training types for posture, inflection and all that other horseshit that politicians today need to have when they do stuff like debates. She is intelligent enough to absorb the key talking points, and if she makes it that high she will have been in the thick of her own fight to become the Pubs candidate, so she would be familiar with the issues and talking points simply from that alone.
In short, you are highly underestimating her ability to keep up with Obama, and if HE does that then it’s going to hurt him in a number of ways, one of which might be accusations of gender bias (i.e. if he tries to treat her gently or whatever he will rightfully be blasted for not taking a woman seriously).
Neither. He should use the same strategy he’d use to debate any Republican…hammer them on points he thinks his side is strong on and deflect on those where the Pubs could hurt him, and try to project a calm and informed tone overall. He IS the incumbent after all, so he needs to act like it and try and hammer his own talking points through, focus on subjects he thinks will help him win and avoid those that will make him or the Dems look bad or help his opponent…whoever that is.
To me that’s silly and arrogant. It’s the same thinking that I heard in every debate involving Bush on this board (i.e. Bush being totally ‘outclassed’). It was funny, in an ironic and vaguely schadenfreud-esque way to see the puzzlement when folks here thought Bush didn’t have a chance, only to see that their opinions of him being completely ‘outclassed’ weren’t born out in either the polls or the election results.
Obama is definitely a smart guy. But debate isn’t necessarily about raw intelligence. It’s not even about broad knowledge. It’s about connecting with the voters, appealing to them, and conveying your message. It’s not a test, and there are no ‘right’ answers in the sense that only the facts matter, and if you get a fact wrong you lose. It’s more about getting people to accept your world view and your ‘facts’ and appealing to their own conceptions of reality such that you gain their trust and get them to vote for you more than the other guy. And in this I’d say Palin can do an adequate job, given her own abilities and a team to coach and train her.
-XT
If I may wade back into the waters of the discussion that I *think *the OP was trying to have, it seems to me that if Obama came into a debate with Palin (or anyone, for that matter) and started dropping bombs by calling out the other’s ingorance, inexperience, ineffectiveness, etc. it would seem so out of character that he might actually come off as a bully, as the OP kind of suggests. Obama seems to generally be viewed as a "soft “power” president. This kind of leadership has been praised for allowing Obama to be generally tolerant, trying to make friends with almost everyone. It’s also been criticized for his perceived soft stance on China, BP, etc. Heck, his supporters generally think he was soft on the stimulus and soft on healthcare. So, for him to let loose on his opponent in a presidential debate, I think it could possibly blow up in his face. It could perpetuate critics’ view of Obama as an “all talk no walk” president in that he only puts on the big boy pants when he’s behind a podium.
Fair enough, but her act seems to be winning over alot more people since then, as evidenced by the Tea Party phenomenon. I’m also not so sure it’s quite fair to compare her VP run with a potential presidential campaign where she’d be the central focus.
(OK, I’ll admit it : I’m just still smarting from the recent shellacking!)
The Tea Party is pretty much the same people who already liked her.
Following on from that IMO salient point, I can’t at this moment recall a situation where Obama has ever called out an opponent who was on the same stage with him. This guy has one of the more controlled personalities I’ve ever seen, and I am certain he recognizes that anything resembling ad hominem attack on an opponent would provide little or no tactical advantage.
OTOH, in a notional future debate, seems as though the only real ways Palin could gain a degree of advantage, and which fit her style, are the old standbys: relentlessly attack Obama’s record (Obamacare! Bailouts! Socialism!)and try to paint him as out of touch with the American mainstream. As she doesn’t really have a record of her own, that avenue is closed off to him. I’m not saying it would swing the results her way, but it is pretty much her best hope of leveling the field a bit.
My gut goes in favor of the clock cleaning.
The Republicans have been having great success being in your face unabashed partisans taring their opponents and their policies with whatever slur they can. The Democrats meanwhile have been relatively reserved, compromising and polite. The result of this has been a highly energized Republican base, and an Democratic base that has fallen asleep.
It may be the case that there is a nationally internalized double standard that makes brashness work for Republicans but be seen as overboard for Democrats, but given the current political climate I think its worth a try for the Democrats to be a bit more forceful.
Obama was invited to the conference. Now the Repub talking point is he "ambushed "them’. It will sell. Repubs are not too smart. They will repeat it as fact and somehow important , forgetting that he made them look like the short term greedy fools that they are.
Ah, the irony…
-XT
Ah, the drive by no content posting when unable to defend the intellectual poverty of the right…
-LH
And I should defend The Right™ and their ‘intellectual poverty’ why, exactly?
And ETA: The irony of you posting a content free rant about my content free aside and me having to defend The Right(aar) and their ‘intellectual poverty’ is, well, pretty fucking ironic…
-XT
Obama will, and should, debate like he always has - calm, cool, and collected. Answer the questions. Challenge the lies when possible. He beat Hillary Clinton using this method, and he can certainly beat someone as limited as Palin. You are not debating to make TPers realize her limitations - that is impossible. You are not debating to fire up your base - they will be plenty fired up to keep her out of the WH. You are debating to win over all of those that are drawn to her “folksy charm” but want to know if she has the chops for the job - let her prove that she doesn’t while reassuring them that you do.
As for all the other claims in this thread (Palin’s speech called the best ever?? Obama very unpopular?? Palin as kingmaker even though most of her “outsider” candidates lost, including in her own state??), we’ll just leave those for another day.
In the end it will likely be moot, IMO. Palin will not get the nomination, because the GOP very much wants to win this upcoming election, and she very much will not be able to do that. There are only two politicians with worse pos/neg numbers than her - Nancy Pelosi and Dick Cheney.
I’m not sure that Palin wouldn’t want Obama to trounce her. That gives her the opportunity to play her favorite card - that of the victim. The more effectively Obama shuts her down, the greater the extent to which she can put on her “Boo hoo! They’re picking on me - a poor, delicate woman!” act. We’ve seen before that the media eats this stuff up, so she knows that she can easily frame the dialog surrounding the debate to “angry black man is mean to poor white mother.”
She’s actually in a good position were this ever to happen. If Obama is agressive, she gets to whine about how mean he was to her. If he treats her too softly, she gets to gloat about how he was too afraid to mix it up with a Real American Grizzly Bear or whatever. Her fanbase is totally ignorant of the issues, so it isn’t going to matter if she gets up there and starts talking about how we need to build casinos on the moon as long as she acts sufficiently indignant afterward.
You shouldn’t. I’m glad we have come to this agreement.
I tried to match the tone of *your *content free rant. Although, you will note, my rant is obviously superior in the realm of both character and word number. So my content-free has more content than yours.
-LH
I just don’t see why so many of you believe this. She is playing with the big kids now (well, she will be if she ever gets the Republican nomination…:dubious:!!). She isn’t going to be able to lose a debate in a major way and then say Obama was mean to her…get real. This is the kind of thinking that, to me, says that women can’t really compete with men in an arena like politics. No one said that Obama was mean to Hillary (and were taking serious) even when he trounced her.
Now, if he’s rude or brutal or something then that’s another story…but I think that would be the same if he were debating a man as a woman.
-XT
I’m just puzzled why you even thought I should or would, to be honest. But I’m glad you could come to an agreement with a position I already held, i.e. that I’m not one to defend The Right™ or their supposed ‘intellectual poverty’. 
Only if we go by word count. My content free dig was, well, pretty funny (IMHO anyway…MMV and all that jazz), while yours really didn’t make much sense, though again I suppose that is a matter of perspective.
I do concede that you had more content (in terms of electrons) in your content free post than I did, and I hope we can now proceed to the heavy drugs and hookers phase of our relationship. Just remember that these days there are many decaffeinated beverages on the market that are just as tasty as the real thing, and I think we’ll get along fine.
-XT
I completely disagree. Sure her base eats this up. They love it when she plays the victim because it gives them a reason to hate the people who are picking on poor Sarah.
But at the end of the day, nobody wants a victim running the country. That’s going to be the Democratic strategy against Palin - that she’s not tough enough to be President.
Look at Margaret Thatcher. You never heard her whining about people being mean to her. She projected an image of a woman who could take your best shot and hit you back twice as hard.
Little Nemo: Exactly.
-XT
The media treated Hillary differently than it does Palin, though, and she has a different relationship with respect to Obama than Palin does. People didn’t talk so much about Obama being mean to Hillary, but that’s because she had a well-established reputation as being tough. What the media did glom onto was that time she cried, and shortly after that the discussion switched to the “Why won’t she quit?” stuff.
Palin is able to play the media better than Hillary could, and righteous indignation and the solicitation of pity are two of the most powerful weapons in her arsenal.
Now, all that said, I don’t think Palin has a chance in Hell of beating Obama in '12. I don’t think she’ll even get the nomination, and if she did I think Obama would absolutely destroy her. But I do think she’d be able to work debates to her advantage. I didn’t intend to give the impression that I think this would get her elected, though. I should have been clearer.
DianaG: I think you owe an apology to all truck-stop waitresses. 
Women say they want equality, so I say Obama should be on her like white on rice. Treat her like a man; stomp her stupid ass into rhetorical flinders.