How did Alaska Governor Sarah Palin do in her first nationally-televised interview as the Republican nominee for vice president?
Just O.K.
But, in a dumbed-down interregnum defined by America's first ESL (English-as-a-Second-Language) president, just O.K. is more than sufficient.
There were no Dan Quayle gaffes – at least none of the glaring potato/e ones that made the last questionable Republican nominee for vice president so, well, questionable.
Palin, who was quizzed at length if not breadth about her international affairs experience (or lack thereof) by ABC News anchor Charlie Gibson, answered the questions with the skill of a college freshman who had crammed with an eye toward achieving a solid "C" – which is to say that she did better than might have been expected of quite a few members of Congress and several Bush Cabinet members.
The nominee who has gone in two weeks from "Sarah Who?" to 90 percent name recognition tossed off the names of a few foreign leaders – her eyes twinkling when she scored with hard ones like Ahmadinejad and Saakashvili. She danced around questions about some of her more extreme past statements ("Our national leaders are sending U.S. soldiers on a task that is from God"), which had seemed to imagine the occupation of Iraq as some kind of holy war. And, whenever she got in trouble, she just repeated her mantra: "We cannot second guess the steps Israel has to take to defend itself."
To his credit, Gibson did not ask Palin just once about whether it would be alright by her if Israel attacked Iran. He asked three times. And he got the exact same answer each time.
Similarly, Palin tried her hardest to avoid saying anything definitive about whether she might favor fighting Russia over issues of Georgian or Ukrainian territorial sovereignty. She finally offered up a less than sabre-rattling: "Perhaps so." That's unsettling for those of us who are not inclined toward fighting distant wars of dubious necessity, but it was probably even more unsettling to Mr. Saakashvili, the Georgian leader who despite Palin's reassurances ("I was able to speak with him the other day and giving him my commitment, as John McCain's running mate, that we will be committed to Georgia") can't have felt all that reassured by her response to Gibson's precise questioning.
Palin was weakest when Gibson asked whether she subscribed to "the Bush doctrine" – which says the U.S. can invade pretty much any country that it likes. The governor was obviously unfamiliar with the doctrine. And Gibson, embarrassingly for a journalist trying to display his chops, let her get away with a bumbling attempt to talk her way out of the corner.
Palin was most revealing, whether she knew it or not, when it came to describing the relentless ambition that drives her. Asked if she felt even the slightest uncertainty about accepting an invitation to stand one heartbeat away from the presidency, she replied, "I have the confidence in that readiness and knowing that you can't blink, you have to be wired in a way of being so committed to the mission…"
Palin may not have been all that articulate there.
But she did not blink.
Neither should her Democratic foes.
There will be plenty of spin trying to suggest that the former mayor of Wasilla shined or stumbled in her sit-down with Gibson. The truth is that she made it through. That's all. But that's important.
Palin faced credible questioning and she offered answers that were uninspired but sufficient.
She was too tense to really knock one out of the park. But she was confident enough to stand her ground.
And she will get better at this.
That's what Democrats need to understand, The Republican nominee for vice president may be unprepared to serve as president. But she is prepared to campaign aggressively, and probably effectively, for her ticket.
Instead of waiting for a gotcha moment, Democrats should accept that Palin is sufficiently competent to meet the challenges of a modern American campaign – certainly better on her feet than the current President Bush, probably better than Quayle.
Democrats should expect that Palin will do O.K. when her handlers allow her to be interviewed and that she will probably muddle through the October 2 debate against Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden with enough soundbites to give her fans something to cheer.
The response of smart Democrats to Palin will not be to diminish her but to treat her as a serious contender. In doing so, they will get beyond the expectations game and on to the vital dialogue about whether a Republican ticket that -- whether Palin knows it or not -- adheres to the Bush doctrine and just about every other failed policy and wrongheaded strategy of a president whose approval rating is about twenty point below the level that will be required to elect the McCain-Palin ticket come November.
