Chicken Dinner / 05 October 2008 Free Bet

Stop any American on any street in the US and ask them what the vice president does and you'd get one of three answers: either a shrug, a head scratch or blank stare.

And they'd all be right - the vice president doesn't have to do anything, if the president so wishes, other than be available to step in should death or disgrace intervene. Of course, the VP doesn't have to sit around drumming his or her fingers on the desk for eight years - although plenty of presidents have come close to such inactivity - and the incumbent, the spectral presence Dick Cheney, has probably had more impact on the activities of the Bush administration than Bush himself. Nonetheless, the "veep" is essentially an understudy, rarely used and swiftly forgotten.

This time round, though, what with John McCain being so advanced in years, voters have had to pay closer attention to his choice of running mate, as the likelihood of that person having to take the wheel at some point, should he win, is considerably higher than usual.

McCain has also made a memorable choice - indeed the way the polls are turning against him at the moment, the only thing his campaign may be remembered for is the decision to run with the Governor of Alaska, the moose-hunting hockey "mom", Sarah Palin.

At first, it looked like a nutty decision, then it swiftly seemed an inspired one, as voters suddenly liked the idea of finding a normal-ish person on the ticket. Once the press really started to investigate this mysterious stranger, however, her firepower diminished as her lack of substance was gradually revealed. She even managed to make the beleaguered news anchor Katie Couric, losing an ugly TV ratings battle of her own, look like an incisive journalist when she gently pushed Palin to name the newspapers and magazines that informed her political thinking and Ms Palin failed to offer up a single title.

Gerard Baker, writing in The Times, said: "Thanks to those disastrous TV outings, expectations for her performance before the debate were so low that she could have exceeded them simply by coming on stage and smiling beatifically for an hour and a half."
Instead, she held her own against Obama's number two, Joe Biden.

Critics praised her folksy approach; "What viewers got was a full dose of the aw-shucks, regular-folks Palin personality, with no effort to turn it into anything else. Within minutes, she had said "heck" and "darn," and referred to "Joe Six Pack," said Gerald Seib in the Wall Street Journal.

Biden was also considered impressive, though, especially in his specialist field of foreign affairs, but who won? Who knows.

"It was a fascinating byplay," says Seib, "but not necessarily one that changed many minds."

This failure of the debate to shift voters from their established positions is reflected in the comments that follow some of the newspaper reports.

"Governor Palin clearly won the debate, and she did it with 'style and class.' She has the beauty of a Queen Rania, the poise of Ronald Reagan, and the conviction of Mother Theresa. She will be THE reason McCain-Palin ticket wins. What an answer to prayer!" gushed one Jeff Burnsed of Jacksonville, Florida in The Times.

Yet Kay of Lindenhurst, responding to the same piece, commented "I felt like I was listening to a commercial when she (Palin) spoke. Biden won the debate by miles."

The only real conclusion to draw from the debate, then, is that it failed to produce a good reason for anyone to switch camps or think differently about the presidential candidates, which is great news for Obama, not so for McCain. For the latter, the gap in the polls is starting to look unbridgeable by fair means. It could be time to visit the dirty tricks closet.

(The Realclearpolitics.com average of polls has Obama 5.7% ahead. The Betfair Next President market has Obama at [1.35], McCain at [3.9].)