While the US Vice Presidential debates have proven a locus for high theatre and some of the more memorable moments on the campaign trail in recent years - from Lloyd Bentsen's infamous admonishment of Dan Quayle for comparing himself to John F. Kennedy to James Stockdale's self-deprecating, "Who am I? Why am I Here?"- their impact on the course of the election itself has, in contrast, proven largely negligible, serving more as fodder for politicos within the media to debate and deconstruct ad nauseam than a soapbox through which to change the hearts and minds of the American electorate. Nothing illustrates this more vividly, perhaps, than the marginal impact Quayle's inept and widely-panned and parodied debate performance would prove to have on George H.W. Bush's relatively assured victory over Michael Dukakis in 1988.
A perfect storm with respect to issues of age, experience and gender, however, has conspired to ensure that tonight's debate in St. Louis between Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and Delaware's Senator Joe Biden will prove the most important of its kind since vice presidential candidates first squared up in 1976, and may ultimately prove the definitive turning point for both parties with little over five weeks left before election day. With America facing the prospect of its commander-in-chief entering office at the age of 72 in the event of a victory for Senator John McCain, the question of "who comes next" in the presidential line of succession has grown in importance amongst prospective voters in this election, placing as a result far greater scrutiny on the readiness of both candidates on the bottom of the tickets to lead than in previous election cycles.
With the spotlight growing ever more brighter, it should come as no surprise therefore that Palin's readiness to lead, rather than foreign policy or economics, has arguably become the all-consuming issue surrounding the McCain camp itself. Palin was the darling of the Republican Party and the new face of social conservatism only a month ago. Now, increased media attention over the meltdown of the world's financial markets, a string of gaffe-filled interviews with Charlie Rose, Sean Hannity and Katie Couric, and the subsequent call from numerous conservative commentators for her removal from the ticket has meant that the "Palin Bounce" briefly enjoyed by the McCain campaign has quickly been eroded by uncertainty over her qualifications.
Tonight has become very much a referendum on Palin herself: finally free from the straightjacket of her media handlers, if she fails to sufficiently replicate the energy, conviction and, most importantly, clarity of her coming-out speech at the Republican National Convention and appease concerns over her recent missteps, this debate may ultimately prove a far more damaging blow to John McCain's Oval Office aspirations than his mishandling last week of the congressional deliberation on the $700 financial bailout package.
Relegated to the fringes of electoral coverage since his unveiling in Denver, Biden now has an important and delicate role to play. Faced with the challenge of debating a female opponent with exceptionally low levels of expectation, Biden must shun his infamously verbose and long-winded style of rhetoric to match Palin's snappy sound bytes while finding an appropriate tone on the night with which to underscore the frailties of his opponent. But he must not come across as domineering, patriarchal, snide or misogynistic - a balancing act that George H.W. Bush found difficult when facing Geraldine Ferraro in 1984.
Failure to do so, given the lingering alienation of female voters within the Democratic Party created as a result of Obama's defeat of Hillary Clinton in the primary season, and the willingness of the McCain-Palin ticket to cry sexism in recent weeks with respect to the media's increasingly critical coverage, will inadvertently place the impetus back into Republican hands, and prove far more costly than any of the other more benign missteps "Joe being Joe" has made so far on the campaign trail.
