While they differ on projections and advice for the candidates, political analysts with rural ties contacted by the Iowa Independent agree on one point: this is a defining political night for the nation.

Gov. Sarah Palin

Al Cross, the director of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, said Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden, a U.S. senator from Delaware, may be better known in Iowa, but in the country as a whole, Palin, although only a first-term Alaska governor, is now better known.

“The possibilities for Palin encompass almost the whole spectrum,” says Cross. “She’s supposed to be a quick study, and proved to be a good debater in Alaska when she had the facts at her command, so she could ju-jitsu the recent bad press on her and beat the expectations game. Also, this will be a calm, controlled situation, unlike those that produced the slips.”

But there’s no way Palin can bone up on everything, Cross added from his office in Lexington, Ky.

“Some of the issues can be relatively arcane so she could also fall all over herself like she did with Katie Couric,” Cross said. “This will be a high-wire act and draw a huge audience.”

Over in Greene County, outside of Cooper, veteran Iowa observer and writer Chuck Offenburger, a Republican, said Palin needs to have the performance of her life.

“Not that Sarah Palin needs one more bit of pressure on her, but I think this vice-presidential debate may well be a last stand for the Republican ticket, as far as rural America is concerned,” Offenburger said  “She must re-convince us of her legitimacy as a running mate, after her disastrous interviews with Charles Gibson and Katie Couric.  When John McCain, in last Friday night’s debate, said so matter-of-factly that he’d ‘eliminate ethanol subsidies,’ I could sense a lot of Republicans across the Farm Belt saying, ‘That’s the last straw.’  If Palin bombs Thursday night, that would really seal the deal.”

Offenburger said Palin should come out swinging tonight, maintain her confidence and attempt to convince Americans that she is indeed the “new energy,” as she’s said.

“I also think she should make a strong stand with her pro-life position, and challenge Biden on his views on abortion and those of Obama,” Offenburger said. “Also, she should separate herself from the Bush administration and the Republican past, and that it’s time for mavericks like her to re-shape the GOP.”

State Sen. Jeff Angelo, R-Creston, says Democrats underestimate Palin at their own peril. He believes she is the victim of a generalized liberal media caricature.

“What I have found amazing is that the national media doesn’t let the facts get in the way of their master narrative,” Angelo said.  “We’ve been told that Palin is an embarrassment and that the economic crisis hurts McCain.  Yet, in today’s new ABC poll, McCain has taken the lead among independents and has actually gained on Obama in the last week.   This is the problem with commentary being put forward as objective news.”

In Storm Lake, Art Cullen, the progressive co-owner/editor of The Storm Lake Times, who endorsed Biden for the presidency during the Iowa caucuses, said most Americans who care already understand that Biden is an expert on foreign affairs and Palin is not.

“So I think Biden needs to undermine Palin at her supposed strength — energy policy,” Cullen said. “Rural Iowans would like to hear Biden embrace renewable energy in all its forms. I doubt that Palin knows what the wind energy production tax credit is, or what percentage of the corn acreage goes to ethanol production. Biden should know. He should talk about Obama’s plan to invest $150 billion in renewable energy research and deployment as a domestic economic stimulus and as a foreign policy foil.”

Se. Joe Biden

There should be no gender-based double-standard in the debate, Cullen added.

“I don’t think that Biden should go soft on her because she is a woman,” Cullen said. “If she acts like a fool, Biden should pounce on it. But I have never won a debate, much less an election.”

Republican insider David Oman, a former GOP candidate for governor, said Biden is smart enough to avoid being condescending toward Palin.

“Senator Biden is well known to two generations of Iowans from running for the White House in 1987-1988 and this last caucus cycle, 20 years later,” said Oman, a Des Moines businessman.  “He has made friends in Dubuque and Carroll Counties and in Iowa’s larger cities where there are many voters who are Roman Catholic.”

Biden is a  Catholic.

Oman said the debate time rules will likely help with Biden’s need for brevity.

The real questions, Oman said, are about Palin.

“Sarah Palin can read a teleprompter and work a rope line well — both with energy and personality,” Oman said. “Can she answer philosophical questions beyond talking about her own life experiences? Can she answer political questions beyond relating Alaska anecdotes? Can she articulate an understanding of America’s security, economic, and social challenges?”

Oman said Palin may benefit from low expectations, but he questions whether  “clearing a low bar really wins votes.”

“I remember the tried- and-true gasoline ad from my childhood: ‘You expect more from Standard, and you get it.’” Oman said. “Americans expect more from nominees for the two highest offices in the land.”

With a uniquely western Iowa blend of populist and libertarian instincts that pops with pizazz and overflows with soul, Cullen, the progressive editor of the paper his family owns, takes up for “Joe Six Pack” with a brilliant point-by-point condemnation of both Democrats and Republicans in the Iowa Legislature. The editorial is a must read for any thinking Iowan. It is in the tradition of that great community journalist of early last century, William Allen White of The Emporia Gazette.

Here is Cullen:

The legislature appears to be dismissive, if not contemptuous, of the little guy – Joe Six Pack who makes 10 bucks an hour, works hard, keeps his head down, stops by the neighborhood bar on his way home from work for a couple bumps and a brief respite.

Last year they took away his Touch Play machines – slot machines, really – because the casinos and self-righteous didn’t like them.

This year they will tell him that not only he can’t pull the slots, he can’t have a smoke with that beer that the state taxes and controls. (The casinos will be exempted, of course, because they make bigger political contributions than the Association of Little Bar Owners.)

If his skin is brown and he speaks Spanish, they might have a state trooper trying to track him down to tell him he is not welcome here. If he owns a small business, he could face a year in prison or $10,000 fine for hiring an illegal immigrant with phony papers.

If he has a kid ready for college, and his wife works, too, he probably can’t get a dime’s worth of aid at a state university while the tuition keeps going up. If he looks at the community college, he’ll find little help there, either.

If he has a pickup, they’re going to jack up the registration fee.

If his kids need health insurance and he can’t afford it, the state will make it as difficult as possible to get covered under the Hawk-I insurance program. He will be made to feel like a welfare queen. And if he fails to apply because of the mountain of red tape, the state might force sanctions on him.

If he pays union dues, he does so knowing that his job pays half as much as it did in 1975 because the unions have no power or they are in bed with management, while the politicians that the corporations and unions own wink.

If he has a cheap little acreage just to get away from it all and a huge hoghouse moves in next door, the legislature has made certain he can do nothing about it.

If he likes to fish every now and then, and he finds that his lake looks like a manure lagoon because the state has ignored it, he has the legislature to thank for appropriating a mere $9 million per year for restoration statewide.

When will someone in Des Moines stand up for him?

When will someone say live and let live? If you want to kill yourself smoking in that bar and gambling your life away, have at it.

When will someone return to the quaint notion that state universities are for everyone, not just the entitled?

When will someone recognize that immigrants are our neighbors, not our enemies?

Or that every poor child should be able to access health insurance without having to hire an accountant?

Or that Iowa has cut $800 million in annual income tax revenue and shifted it to sales taxes borne primarily by the poor?

Or that thousands of Iowans are locked years in prison for minor theft and drug offenses so legislators could look tough on crime?

Until someone steps up, Joe Six Pack can figure out that the Democrats and Republicans holed up down there until April are really out for themselves and the preservation of their power.

Cullen makes the case that Iowa — facing an epic worker shortage — desperately needs immigrants and should reject political hysteria and think about what is best for rural economies.

Here is Cullen:

What we really need is to open up the immigration quotas to fill our low-skilled, medium-skilled and high-skilled job shortages. This is especially true in Iowa, which is aging rapidly and badly needs workers in the agri-industrial sector. It’s basically simple arithmetic: How many meatpackers and landscapers do we need? Let that many in. For those already here, pay a fine for entering illegally, get on a path to citizenship, learn English and keep your nose clean.

This is what most Americans want, according to the polling we have seen. They want a way for people to escape poverty, fill unfilled yet important jobs and live safely and out of the shadows. Most American citizens do not think it practical to ship out 15 million illegal aliens, the great majority of whom have never been in trouble here and have no idea what a dirty bomb is. Most good Christians we know find it an offense to their values to separate families, consign people to a life of poverty under corrupt regimes, and to identify people as criminals based on their appearance or country of origin. As Christ said, “What you do to the least of my brothers, you do to me.”

Cullen, the editor and co-owner of the newspaper and a journalist whom Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Gartner calls one of the two best editorial writers in the state, challenged Harkin to explain what Cullen clearly believes is a lack of backbone from congresional Democrats — particularly from U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

At one point, the famously blunt Cullen asked Harkin this of congressional Democrats: "What the hell can they do?"

In fact, just moments after speaking with Harkin, a fired-up Cullen penned an editorial entitled, "Cowering Congress."

After the exchange I called Cullen and talked to him about it. Cullen views Harkin as something of a lonely voice and said his questions were aimed at drawing out the senator on the Democratic congressional leadership.

Here is some of Cullen's editorial:

As it stands, neither the Democrats nor the Republicans deserve support in November 2008. At least the Republicans continue to stand on principle, even if it is wrong. The Democrats have not identified the principle that voters handed to them. They need a spine, and maybe they'll get one before it is too late. But we doubt it, based on what Congress has not done so far.

The following are some excerpts from the Cullen-Harkin exchange.

Cullen: Voters elected a Democratic Congress and if they were hoping for a reform-based farm bill they will be disappointed. If they were hoping to get out of Iraq they'll be disappointed. If they had hoped for a modest expansion in the SCHIP program they're going to be disappointed. And it sounds as if you might be joining the 80 percent of Democrats who are disappointed with the Democratic leadership in Congress … Are you among those 80 percent who are as fed up with the Democratic leadership as the polls would indicate? Are you among them?

Harkin: Well I just know how difficult it is to make changes, especially in agriculture. As I've said many times, Art, you know, this big engine of agriculture doesn't make sharp turns. It has to go around the bend and hopegfully we are bending it a little bit. I think we started a little bit in 2002 with green payments. We'll have a Dickens of a time continuing it. I make no bones about that. As I responded to someone who was diappointed in what we are doing — the comments you just made — is the answer to that to put more Republicans in the Senate and House who will go the opposite direction — or to elect more progressive Democrats?

Cullen: Do Democrats deserve to be re-elected if they can't get us out of Iraq, they can't pass a reform-based farm bill, they can't pass an SCHIP program? What the hell can they do?

Harkin: As I said, one you only have a one-vote margin in the Senate, and that one vote is basically an independent. It makes it pretty difficult.

Cullen: But the problem's in the House isn't it?

Harkin: Not necessarily. Keep in mind also that we're going through a wrenching time of trying to get our budget under control. If we just emulated what the Republicans did for the last five years, and said "to heck with it, we'll just put it on our grandkids backs," we could do some things. But we're saying we're going to have a pay-go budget. We're going to tighten down on things. But the one millstone around our neck is still the Iraq war. When we're spending $12 billion a month, that is a big millstone around our neck.

Cullen: Then on your central premise, you've got to get out of Iraq first to do anything else, why are the Democrats laying down?

Harkin: We've got to do two things: Get out of Iraq, elect a Democratic president who gives us a good Democratic secretary of agriculture for what we want to do and a president who has different priorities than this one. That's the answer right there.