Pre-debate thoughts....

1) Why do we even have a Vice-Presidential debate?  Statistically speaking, a Vice-President nominee is more likely to to face their constitutional tie-breaker in the Senate role rather than the constitutionally emergency President role.  And even then, that's a rare political event indeed.

If Vice-President, Sarah Palin is more likely than not only going to have to break an occasional tie vote in the Senate and represent the President at funerals for international dignitaries.  And the American people believe that she's not qualified for that.

2) No Vice-Presidential debate has ever changed the course of a presidential election.  Not one.  Dan Quayle was owned by Lloyd Bensen at that debate.  It's when the public perception of Quayle as a joke began.  But Dukakis lost.

Name me a race where the VP mattered.

3)  The expectations for Palin couldn't lower.  If she avoids breathing out of her mouth for 90 minutes, she wins.  And the McCain campaign will trumpet it and the talking class can't avoid but talking about how Palin "reinvented" herself.  It won't matter.  You don't get more than once chance to introduce yourself to the American people.  And the voters have concluded that Palin doesn't measure up to her billing.

4)  Since being nominated, the McCain campaign has been prepping Palin for two events: her convention speech and tonight.  She'll be sharp and polished.  Forget the Rupert Murdoch-owned WSJ article claiming she "failed" two practice debates.

5)  The McCain camp will overreach.  First, they'll overplay Palin's performance tonight and political significance of it.  Second, if you looked at the list of surrogates that the McCain campaign has for this debate, you'd notice that it's disportionately dominated by Republican women who were invisible just a week ago.  Gov. Swift will say that something Biden said or did was "sexist," "patronizing," "insulting to women," etc.  FOX NEWS's banner will burn the image on your T.V. screen permanently they'll run that charge so long for the next week.

6) Palin will continue to insult "Joe Six-Pack" voters if she continues to associate her utter lack of disinterest in public policy as a quaint quality of hers that identifies herself with them.  Joe Six-Pack cares about the international trade deals that costs him a job.  He cares about his tax dollars bailing out Wall Street.  He cares about the surge.  It's insulting for Palin to say that a criticism of her lack of interest in public policy is an attack against average Americans.  She has to be the only parent with a child going to Iraq who hasn't give much thought about the surge.  It's amazing.

Alot of oxygen and bandwidth is going to be burned up discussing tonight's debate.  Although I'll be participating in tonight's live blog discussion, I want to begin with the premise that the attention and debate about the importance of this debate is simply undeserved.