Just as nearly everyone ignores the Democratic VP candidate in the campaign; so nearly all the attention in the upcoming Vice-Presidential debate will be on Republican candidate Sarah Palin. Democrat Joe Biden actually cannot win this debate. The problem is with the expectations. Typically campaigns spend the week leading to a debate downplaying their own candidates chances and praising their opponent's debating skills. It is done to make "achieving victory" easier by lowering the expectation bar for their own candidate. This time Republicans can skip this ritual as the bar set for Sarah Palin is so low it is laying on the ground. This presents a serious problem for Joe Biden.

The McCain campaign staff appears to have token the correct strategy in protecting Sarah Palin from the public. Since announced as the VP choice she has been the bubble candidate; isolated from anything so risky as a reporter's question. The few times they have let her out of the bubble she has imploded. On October 2 they have to allow her to stand on her own. It's quite possible more people will watch this debate than the first presidential debate. There is an almost macabre anticipation or fear of a Palin disaster. In all likelihood the public is going to be disappointed. We are almost assuredly not going to see the same Sarah Palin that fumbled her three media interviews. She is spending the week cramming with the 2004 Bush debate preparation team which has a lot of experience dealing with a candidate with mediocre debating skills. Expect her to have memorized answers to every question that will be posed to her. She will have had about 15 mock debates by the time she steps onto the stage so she'll know exactly what is coming and is likely not to trip up, even in her weakest area, foreign policy.

With no foreign policy experience besides being able to see Russia, the McCain campaign did the best thing they could to give her talking points. They allowed her to mingle with a few friendly foreign diplomats and leaders in the week prior to the debate. One can expect her to draw almost exclusively upon these conversations as her foreign policy experience. "When I was talking with... last week" will most likely precede many of her answers to questions about her foreign policy experience. While these answers are a pitiful stand in for real experience, they should be sufficient to keep her from looking like a complete novice. Again, with her bar set so low she does not have to hit a home run. All she has to do is make contact and avoid a swing and miss.

People can expect two things from the Vice Presidential debate. 1. It will be filled with very scripted answers to the point of being boring and uneventful. 2. It will not change anyone's mind and will end up playing very little role in the upcoming election unless Biden completely screws up. Only Biden can lose this debate because only Biden has an expectation level he potentially won't achieve. Even a Biden disaster is not likely to play a large role in the campaign although it might slow the Democrat's recent momentum. Sarah Palin will follow her script to such a level that it will allow her supporters to breathe a sigh of relief and her opponents will feel a sense of disappointment in not getting to see the train wreck they are hoping for. In any case, one can expect a very boring debate that will become just a footnote in this campaign.