Perhaps more notably, Vice President Joe Biden will still headline the dinner (as far as we know). That will put him pretty far outside the Washington beltway as the Senate’s health bill is finalized.

“We are absolutely thrilled to have the Vice President back in Iowa,” said party chair Michael Kiernan in a statement.

The event will take place Saturday, November 21, in Des Moines. It is typically the party’s largest fundraiser of the year.

The last time Biden spoke at a “JJ” dinner in Iowa was in 2007, in the lead-up to the 2008 Iowa Caucuses, when he was still a presidential candidate. That year, he claimed on stage that then-Sen. Barack Obama had bused in many of his supporters from Chicago, a claim that could not be verified. Times have obviously changed since then.

Here’s a short video from Biden’s 2007 speech:

The man was apparently at the capitol as part of a group advocating on behalf of health care reform, so an Iowa Independent reader did some googling and sent along the results.  It appears Clemons, a member of the Service Employees International Union and a school janitor in Cedar Rapids, attended the Democratic National Convention with then-Sen. Joe Biden.

Biden also “walked a day in the shoes” of Clemons back when he was running for President himself in the Iowa Caucuses.  Below, I’ve posted video.

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama speaks at a rally in Des Moines last Friday.

Langston, a Democrat, scouted the full field, arguably the deepest ever for her party in terms of resumes and star quality, before picking U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., as her candidate — a choice she made during a ride to the Cedar Rapids airport with Obama amid discussions of the state’s understated beauty.

She saw something within Obama that helped her to make what was a personal decision to support the first-term senator.

“As we were talking, we just became four people,” Langston said. “At that moment in time what I saw was that Senator Obama still had a piece of his humanity. Running for president and all the challenge and hoopla can really put you into a very unusual atmosphere.

“It can change you. I had at that moment, and I continue to have, a sense of Obama as a person. That’s also certainly true with (his wife) Michelle. There is a humanity that still exists within that family that has not been subverted by running for president.”

It’s that unflappable quality and connection to people that Langston believes helped Obama win the nomination.

John McCain speaks to a crowd in Le Mars during the Iowa caucuses. Immigration dominated that forum in northwest Iowa.

While insiders spent time recently thinking about what has made Obama’s campaign successful, most talk of the McCain campaign was more about its missteps than its successes.

Many see McCain’s choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running-mate as a turning point in the election.

Former GOP gubernatorial candidate David Oman, a top staffer for Iowa’s last two Republican governors, says McCain would have been better served by picking former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

“I’ve thought a handful of times the past month that he would have helped, perhaps a lot, in energizing GOP base, appealing to folks deeply troubled by downturn and so-called bailout, and in several southern and border states now close,” Oman said.

He said that Palin has not benefited the Republican ticket.

“Look at the [Des Moines Register] Iowa Poll breakouts with 60 percent of people feeling she is not qualified to assume the presidency,” Oman said.  “Huckabee would have passed that test. Romney, too, though he would have cemented many peoples’ classic impressions of the GOP brand — wealth — and probably not turned around a single state, including Michigan.”

Oman said that if Obama is elected Tuesday he will have to remember where his journey initially received traction.

“It wasn’t in Pennsylvania, or many other states,” Oman said. “It was in Iowa, first.  Lack of success here followed by second in New Hampshire would have shut down his campaign for the nomination.”

Oman said Obama clearly will have higher priorities that need to be addressed before he can focus on a more specifically rural agenda.

“I suspect Obama will focus first on the mega problems of the economy, energy, and health care, not to mention national security with or without the incident [VP nominee Joe] Biden forecasted,” Oman said.

Former Iowa Democratic Party chairman Mike Peterson, now an executive with AT&T in St. Louis, Mo., says at this point, it seems as if the presidential race is all about margin of victory.

“I will be surprised if Obama receives fewer than 350 electoral votes,” Peterson said.

Peterson said he still believes that Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty would have made a stronger running mate for McCain than Palin.

In terms of governing following the election, Peterson said an Obama win is good for rural Iowa.

“I am told that Obama’s first legislative package will be an infrastructure bill,” Peterson said.  “Iowa’s seniority should be a plus there.”

Veteran Iowa writer Chuck Offenburger runs a popular Web site and churns out prolific articles for a variety of publications from a renovated farmhouse outside of Cooper in Greene County. He sees Obama as a stronger leader for rural Iowa than McCain.

“Rural Iowa will fare much better under Obama than it would have under McCain,” Offenburger, a Republican, said.  “Obama understands the Midwest. He understands agriculture and what a huge role ag will play in the new energy era. And he will never forget the huge role Iowans played in enabling his candidacy.”

On the eve of the election State Rep. Tom Schueller, D-Maquoketa, recalled the early days of the Iowa caucuses when he was receiving call after call from candidates.

“I supported Joe Biden in the caucus,” Schueller said. “I thought he would have done better. To be honest with you, I really blame the media for that. They picked up on who they thought was the front-runners and that’s who ended up being the front runners. The other ones didn’t get hardly an honorable mention. Those folks — Biden, (New Mexico Gov, Bill) Richardson and (Connecticut Sen. Chris) Dodd — had a lot of good things to say too.”

Al Cross, director of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues in Lexington, Ky., puts it flatly.

“I see no chance for McCain,” Cross said. “Hindsight is always 20/20. Romney would have brought the base around, though not stimulated crowds and volunteers like Palin. He would have been viewed as qualified, and could have probably made more coherent arguments than McCain, so the election would have been closer.

“But this is all a parlor game because McCain wasn’t about to pick someone he couldn’t get along with, and I agree with that approach. You have to think about governing, not just winning. Obama did that with Biden, an example of his better judgment.”

Down in southern Iowa, State Sen. Jeff Angelo, R-Creston, says McCain has a chance when one looks at the internals in a lot of the state polls.

“Right now, both the Democratic base and the Republican base are fired up,” Angelo said.  “So you assume in a record turnout that the bases are cancelling each other — sorta like my wife and I — you then look at the number among if McCain can swing some of them and the undecideds in the battleground states, he pulls out the electoral win.   Obama was hoping for a blowout based on the participation of new and infrequent voters — but early returns indicate that the early voters are mostly the same voters who always vote early.”

Angelo said McCain’s selection of Palin brought passion to base and delivered a middle-class relevancy.

There is a reason that “Joe The Plumber” became a central figure in this campaign, Angelo said.

“With Palin and Joe’s involvement, McCain got his campaign groove back by realizing that there are a large group of middle class voters who didn’t believe their concerns were being addressed in the campaign,” Angelo said.  “Romney doesn’t have that power to harness the energy of those voters and get them to the polls. Palin does.  She’s ‘one of us.’  In short, I don’t think the race is close without Palin.”

Sarah Palin at a recent rally in Sioux City.

Offenburger thinks McCain’s problem wasn’t in choosing Palin, but in shackling her to a script and cocooning a natural campaigner.

“Let me admit that I still think Palin was a good choice, especially given where the McCain campaign was in August” Offenburger said  “And that leads me to what I think is the biggest mistake McCain made — letting his campaign staff mismanage Palin from the moment she said ‘yes.’  They should have let her talk one-on-one to every reporter, columnist and broadcaster who wanted to talk, instead of packaging her up for those huge exclusive interviews with Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric — under the glare of the brightest lights and widest audiences imaginable.  That was unfair to Palin.

“If the rest of the press corps had been getting frequent access to her immediately, one-on-one and in small gatherings, she would’ve learned quickly to relax and be herself.  I think she would have then shown people the knowledge, ability, personality and savviness that have helped her become governor of a huge, complex and important state.  By the way, I think she would do very well in the kind of retail politics that the Iowa caucuses require.”

For his part, Schueller said Obama has picked a running mate who understands the middle class.

“Look at how he gets to work everyday and look at what he’s done since he’s been there,” Schueller said. “Second of all, Obama has some Midwest roots, being from Illinois and all. So, he’s going to understand our needs a little better than McCain ever would or could. And he’s going to have a better grasp of agriculture than McCain ever would or could. That’s been reflected in Obama’s campaigning. McCain’s record reflects what he thinks about ethanol, renewable energy and so-forth.”

Langston said she knew McCain was in trouble when she saw him speak during the caucus campaign season at a Cedar Rapids Rotary Club meeting.

“That’s a rather large group of over 200 significant business people,” Langston said. “Really, [McCain’s] presentation was not good. By my estimation, it was appallingly bad. While the campaign was talking about having no money, they came into the meeting with drapes and curtains and tele-prompters. I thought, ‘Oh my.’ I mean if you can’t stand up in front of an Iowa Rotary and give a speech without all of this.”

Dianne Bystrom (Iowa State University photo)

The first part of a lengthy study comparing coverage of presidential hopefuls in two newspapers — one in Iowa and one in New Hampshire — is complete, and the statistics it unearthed should give female journalists pause.

The study, which compares newspaper coverage of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Sen. Barack Obama and former Sen. John Edwards leading up to this year’s first two presidential nominating contests, found that 57 percent of the stories that focused on Clinton were written by female journalists, and that more of the coverage Clinton received was negative as compared to Obama and Edwards.

Titled “Gender and U.S. Presidential Politics: Early Newspaper Coverage of Hillary Clinton’s Bid for the White House,” the study remains a work in progress for Dianne Bystrom, director of the Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics at Iowa State University. But Bystrom presented an initial report to the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association based on her work thus far, and she agreed to speak with the Iowa Independent about her findings.

“When I’ve talked with one of my reporter colleagues about [women being more likely to cover Clinton], he claimed that was because a lot of female reporters asked to cover Hillary Clinton,” Bystrom said. “And that could very well be the case.”

Women journalists often want to cover female candidates, but also often over-compensate against perceived biases in their reporting.

“In looking at past research, one of the things that we’ve found is that women reporters are harder on women candidates than male reporters are,” Bystrom said. “What we theorize about that is that women don’t want to be charged with going easy on a woman candidate. At the same time, we think that male reporters are fearful of being charged with sexism if they go hard on a woman candidate.”

In November, Bystrom will present an updated version of the study to the National Communications Association. She hopes to offer that organization more of a comparison piece of the coverage in the two states, based on her analysis of reporting from The Des Moines Register and Concord Monitor.

“One of things I’m interested in looking at, for example, is if Clinton was portrayed as less viable by The Des Moines Register than the Concord Monitor because of the different results in those two states. … I also want to look at the male and female reporters’ coverage of the candidates in terms of issues and negativity in coverage,” Bystrom said.

“Although this is just hypothesis, and may or may not be a part of our results, it could be that Hillary Clinton’s coverage in those papers is more negative than that of the males because it is mostly women covering her and the female journalists are feeling the need to go hard on her. That could be a factor.”

Initial Study Results

To prevent a personal bias from corrupting data, two undergraduate students coded the newspaper articles collected from the Monitor and Register. A graduate student then entered the collected data and ran the statistical tests. In all, 137 articles from the New Hampshire newspaper and 126 stories from Iowa newspaper are represented in the study.

From the pool of 263 news articles, Clinton was the primary candidate focus of 51 and received the most overall primary news coverage. When looking at the two papers separately, however, Clinton received slightly less coverage than Obama and Edwards in The Des Moines Register. A total of 18 articles in the Iowa paper focused on Clinton, while Edwards and Obama each had 20. A significant amount of coverage — 13 percent in New Hampshire and 10 percent in Iowa — focused on the Clinton versus Obama candidacies.

Of those 51 articles focusing on Clinton, however, 22 percent were coded as negative. Comparitively, just one story, or 2 percent, of the 41 articles focusing on Obama was considered negative. None of the 31 articles focusing on Edwards were coded as negative.

While 66 percent of the news articles focused on Obama and 61 percent of those focused on Edwards were considered to be positive, only 33 percent of Clinton’s articles were coded as positive.

It’s All About Image

“One of the good news things is that I really was expecting more image coverage of Clinton in those two newspapers,” Bystrom said. “And really — at least on the overall theme of image — there were not significant differences.”

While on the surface the trend of less statistical difference between male and female candidates in terms of image coverage appears to be a good thing, Bystrom said it is likely an indication of men garnering more image coverage.

“It’s not that women are being covered less in terms of their image, but what’s happening is that men are being covered more in terms of their image, which basically takes the statistical difference away,” she said. “So, it’s not that papers are covering a woman’s image less, but that they are covering a man’s image more. It makes the statistics appear more equitable.”

There is little doubt that image continues to be a media focus for women candidates and, according to Bystrom, the entrance of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin into the national mix has brought the issue once again into the forefront.

“I haven’t done any studies on Sarah Palin, so anything I say would just be based on my personal observations,” she said. “although I’m also sure there will be a lot of studies on her candidacy. People will argue that the media is talking about her children because she’s putting them on center stage, or that the media is discussing her family because she put her family out there. But Joe Biden has told fairly provocative stories about his family, about how he lost his wife and raised his two sons. Although I remember that being discussed in the media, I don’t recall it being the focus of his coverage. I do think that Palin is also being covered a lot in terms of her appearance.”

Bystrom said that a female reporter recently contacted her for comment on an article about Palin.

“A reporter from a large, respected newspaper that was not in Iowa sent a request wanting political science experts to contact her because she was doing on a story on how we would make-over Sarah Palin,” Bystrom explained. “Would we give her a new haircut? Would we change her glasses? Would we change her wardrobe? Although I didn’t respond, what I wanted to respond was how we might wish to make-over Joe Biden. Or, what about John McCain? Or even Barack Obama?”

A different female reporter wanted to know about Clinton’s color choice.

“Another time I was being interviewed by a woman reporter from a respected newspaper and the focus was on Hillary Clinton,” she said. “We were talking about the research, about how woman are often covered based on appearance. This reporter said, ‘This research is all very interesting, but do you think that Hillary Clinton is trying to telegraph to voters different things by her choice of color of pantsuit?’”

Women candidates, according to Bystrom, are told the same things that men candidates are told about color. “Wear what is comfortable and in a color that looks good on camera,” she said. “Clinton and other candidates aren’t telegraphing things to voters with their color choices. They are doing what we train candidates to do — wear colors that look good on you and look good on camera. It’s the same reason you see male politicians sporting red and ice blue ties.”

Of course it’s difficult to write about how the media reported on Clinton’s image without mentioning the now infamous news report about her lower-cut shirt.

“There was the long story in the Washington Post about Hillary Clinton’s cleavage and what she might be trying to tell voters with it,” Bystrom said. “We would just be appalled if there was a story about a man and a part of his body and what he might be trying telegraph to voters. Like if a man wore tight pants. What does that mean to voters?”

Doesn’t Clinton = Negativity?

It’s commonplace for Bystrom to be asked if negativity in the media is focused more on Clinton as an individual than it is on women in general.

“Hillary Clinton is Hillary Clinton,” she said. “She’s going to get some negative coverage just because she is Hillary Clinton and has been in the public eye for as long as she has been. But she’s gotten equitable and good media coverage when she ran for U.S. Senate, even in 2000 when she first ran. She received even more positive coverage in 2006.

“Another reason that I say this is not just Hillary is because of the media coverage Elizabeth Dole received when she sought the Republican nomination. This was at a time when women were receiving much more equitable coverage whether they were running for governor or for senate. We were seeing trends of more equitable coverage, beginning in 1998. But then we looked at Elizabeth Dole. She got less media coverage, more negative coverage and more image-related coverage than all of her male counterparts — even those who were polling below her.”

That leads to the hypothesis that when women seek the highest office, they are going to be treated in stereotypical ways.

“It’s disturbing trend because we’ve taken a step back,” she said. “What we’re seeing is the type of coverage that women were getting in the 1980s and early 1990s when we look at Hillary Clinton’s presidential run. And I think we’re going to see the same type of thing with Sarah Palin.

“I’ve studied Hillary Clinton’s media coverage since she was First Lady. What I can tell you is that Hillary Clinton is capable of getting good media coverage. Where she gets negative media coverage is when she was First Lady and when she runs for president. My theory on that is that we, as a society, have become more accepting of women running for legislative and statewide executive offices. But it seems to be that when someone like Hillary Clinton doesn’t behave in a way that we think a First Lady should behave, or she is running for the nation’s top office, that she gets more negative coverage.”

Bystrom says that study after study has shown the Clinton was treated differently by the media.

“I think Clinton’s campaign was covered in every city, including my own, differently than her male opponents,” she said. “Every single study I’ve seen — be it newspapers, be it television, be it radio, be it magazines — has concluded that Clinton was covered differently than her male opponents, with most studies focusing on the difference between her coverage and Obama’s. The thing that stands out is that she was covered much more negatively than Obama. Of course, that wasn’t the only factor in her race — but it did affect her race. I would say that one of the factors that hurt Hillary Clinton throughout her candidacy was her media coverage.”

The caller, who identifies himself only as “John,” says that Sen. Barack Obama has “voted for at least 94 tax hikes in the past four years.”

According to FactCheck.org, the “count is padded.”

The non-partisan group found that 23 of those votes were for measures that would have produced no tax increase at all because they were votes against proposed tax cuts. Seven more of the votes were in favor of measures that would have lowered taxes for many, while raising them on a relative few — such as corporations or affluent individuals. Annenberg Political Fact Check also found that 11 of those votes would have increased the taxes on those making more than $1 million a year “in order to fund programs such as Head Start and school nutrition programs, or veterans’ health care.”

Finally, the majority of the votes being counted by the Republicans  — 53 total — were on budget measures, not tax bills, and “would not have resulted in any tax change.”

It’s true that most of the votes the GOP counts would either have increased taxes for some, or set budget targets calling for such increases. But by repeating their inflated 94-vote figure, the McCain campaign and the GOP falsely imply that Obama has pushed indiscriminately to raise taxes for nearly everybody. A closer look reveals that he’s voted consistently to restore higher tax rates on upper-income taxpayers but not on middle- or low-income workers. That’s consistent with what he’s said he’d do as president, which is to raise taxes only on those making more than $250,000 a year.

The call also highlights Sen. Joe Biden’s longtime call that it is patriotic for wealthy Americans to pay taxes. The call, however, omits the “wealthy” qualifier that Biden has included as a part of this statement.

Listen to the McCain/RNC automated call.

Sen. Joe Biden and Gov. Sarah Palin debate in St. Louis (Photo: Flickr/barackobamadotcom)

For her part, GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin – speaking with the programmed cadence of a GPS navigation system — used forced folksiness to deliver crammed material in the manner of a  high schooler looking to score a good grade on a Spanish test. The kid may escape with a B-minus, but he wouldn’t be able to order a cup of coffee in Spain a week later.

The most revealing exchange of the debate came when moderator Gwen Ifill of PBS asked Palin, the Alaska governor, to respond to Biden’s contention that the Bush Administration’s policy in the Middle East has been ineffective.

So is it, governor?

“No, but I’m so encouraged we both love Israel,” Palin said.

This after Biden offered a thorough, fact-filled commentary on the recent history of the players in the region.

With weird winks and homespunisms, Palin worked in several “you betchas” and “darn rights” and even a “shout out” to family in an effort to appeal to just folks.

As a small-town Iowan I didn’t find it genuine at all. She actually talked down to us, figuring that references to hockey moms and the hackneyed phrase “Joe Six Pack” and her self-application of the word “maverick” would hold more sway than a discussion of the issues. Details do matter — something the last two weeks and the current two wars have shown Americans.

On energy policy, one of the more important issues in Iowa, Palin could not explain GOP presidential candidate John McCain’s repeated votes against wind power, ethanol, and the renewable energy that have been so vital to the economy around here. She didn’t even give it the old college try.

Instead, as her party’s chief cheerleader, Palin corrected Biden on the — err… — cheer. It’s not “drill, drill, drill” but “drill, baby, drill,” Palin noted gleefully.

If you’re in the mood to buy it, her argument was essentially this: I’m more like you, and you can trust John McCain more than the other guy. Just go with me on it, she suggests.

Another remarkable part of the debate focused on the genocide in Darfur:

Biden: I don’t have the stomach for genocide when it comes to Darfur. We can now impose a no-fly zone. It’s within our capacity. We can lead NATO if we’re willing to take a hard stand. We can, I’ve been in those camps in Chad. I’ve seen the suffering, thousands and tens of thousands have died and are dying. We should rally the world to act and demonstrate it by our own movement to provide the helicopters to get the 21,000 forces of the African Union in there now to stop this genocide.

Palin: But as for as Darfur, we can agree on that also, the supported of the no-fly zone, making sure that all options are on the table there also. America is in a position to help. What I’ve done in my position to help, as the governor of a state that’s pretty rich in natural resources, we have a $40 billion investment fund, a savings fund called the Alaska Permanent Fund.When I and others in the legislature found out we had some millions of dollars in Sudan, we called for divestment through legislation of those dollars to make sure we weren’t doing anything that would be seen as condoning the activities there in Darfur.

When asked to name a policy issues on which each candidate had to change course to deal with evolving circumstances, Biden presented a detailed explanation of how he began factoring in ideology with judicial appointments — serious business.

Palin’s best shot was to suggest that maybe, just maybe, she shouldn’t have “quasi-caved” on a budget for the City of Wasilla, Alaska, where she was mayor until just recently.

Both candidates knew their roles were largely as surrogates and went after the opposing party’s presidential candidate. Palin used cliched lines, arguing, for example, that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama would wave a white flag in Iraq. At one point, she said, “You walk the walk, you don’t just talk the talk,” but she lacked the requisite depth of knowledge to engage in the sort of exchange that would make such claims stick.

GOP handlers prepped Palin well enough for the initial questions of the night, but the Alaska governor was at a canyon-sized disadvantage when it came to follow-ups. She let Biden get in shot after shot in what was a strategy to line team McCain with the Bush dynasty.

Biden: Look, the maverick — let’s talk about the maverick John McCain is. And, again, I love him. He’s been a maverick on some issues, but he has been no maverick on the things that matter to people’s lives.

He voted four out of five times for George Bush’s budget, which put us a half a trillion dollars in debt this year and over $3 trillion in debt since he’s got there.

He has not been a maverick in providing health care for people. He has voted against — he voted including another 3.6 million children in coverage of the existing health care plan, when he voted in the United States Senate.

He’s not been a maverick when it comes to education. He has not supported tax cuts and significant changes for people being able to send their kids to college.

He’s not been a maverick on the war. He’s not been a maverick on virtually anything that genuinely affects the things that people really talk about around their kitchen table.

Can we send — can we get Mom’s MRI? Can we send Mary back to school next semester? We can’t — we can’t make it. How are we going to heat the — heat the house this winter?

He voted against even providing for what they call LIHEAP, for assistance to people, with oil prices going through the roof in the winter.

So maverick he is not on the important, critical issues that affect people at that kitchen table.

Palin let that go unanswered because she was obviously not fast enough on her feet. And you can’t blame Ifill for it, because Palin made a point of saying she was going to talk about what she wanted, not what Ifill or Biden were talking about.

While that media-bashing may work with the already-locked-in base, viewers with a fundamental sense of fairness saw the Alaska governor trying play outside of the rules in a debate in which Biden was civil — perhaps too much so. And which of Ifill’s questions in this debate were unfair “gotcha” questions, anyway?

Biden also seized on an opportunity to remind people of the power Dick Cheney has wielded as vice president. He said he thinks the VP’s office has had too much power, and he cast his would-be role in an Obama administration as largely advisory. Palin clearly wants Cheney-like powers. Something to think about.

Remarkably, Biden, thought to be the coldblooded product of two many years in the U.S. Senate, had the most genuine moment of humanity in the debate when he briefly choked up about car accident three decades ago that claimed his first wife and a daughter and left his sons injured.

“The notion that somehow, because I’m a man, I don’t know what it’s like to raise two kids alone, I don’t know what it’s like to have a child you’re not sure is going to — is going to make it — I understand,” Biden said.

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.”

Sarah Palin requested and received an extension of the deadline for revealing her personal finances, until the day after her only debate with Democrat Joe Biden.

The Republican vice presidential candidate received a four-day extension Thursday from the Federal Election Commission.

The federal financial disclosure report was initially due next Monday. Now, Palin has until Oct. 3, the day after her debate in St. Louis with Biden, the Democratic vice presidential nominee.

Most of the Old Media were caught up in Lipstick On A Pig, Day Two, trying to decide if Barack Obama had insulted Sarah Palin, and occasionaly noting that John McCain had used the same phrase describing Hillary Clinton’s health care plan. Obama decried the Same Old Rove Politics by repeating (at 2:42 into the clip below) the emphasized “Enough!” from his Democratic National Convention stadium acceptance speech, but then concluded the clause with “Enough Is Enough!“…

…and fans of internet memes all know what follows THAT exclamation.

WARNING: NOT SAFE FOR WORK

Democrats looking for a surrogate to go on the attack could do worse than Samuel L. Jackson and his NSFW anti-snake rhetoric.

Jackson is also anti-pork — eating, not spending — in “Pulp Fiction,” memorably noting, “I don’t wanna eat nothin’ that ain’t got enough sense to disregard its own feces.” But lipstick on a pig may actually help here in the hog state, provided this independent candidate doesn’t split the votes.

Arnold Ziffel guarantees “no pork barrel politics,” so that bridge to nowhere, or rather to Hootervile, is a firm “thanks, but no thanks.”

Independent candidates (perhaps including Ziffel) will split the vote all over the place, if Ron Paul has his way. He endorsed… well, no one in particular on Wednesday, but rather third parties in general and Not McCain in the specific, making a point of saying that he’d gotten a last minute call from the McCain campaign asking for an endorsement and that he’s turned them down. Everyone assumes Paul is really backing Bob Barr, whose running mate this week offered to stand down for Paul. Paul, meanwhile, is coasting to re-election to the house — on the Republican ticket. He may have to eat lunch alone next year.

Or perhaps dine with Joe Lieberman, whose John McCain endorsement got kicked out of the Senate Democrat’s lunch table, but not out of his committee chairmanship. Yet.

As for McCain, he’s fighting the election with the running mate he has, not the running mate he wants. Sarah Palin’s fifteen minutes are continuing, the question being if they will last until Nov. 4. But an analysis of Gallup polling shows that nearly all of McCain’s post-Palin gains are in the South.

In the South, South Carolina Democratic chair Carol Fowler got herself in trouble Wednesday for noting that Palin’s giving birth to her son with Down syndrome was an important part of her public persona. And that’s something I’ve heard Palin’s pro-life/anti-choice (choose your side, even neutral language is near impossible) supporters say as well. Unfortunately, the phrase Fowler chose was that Palin’s “primary qualification seems to be that she hasn’t had an abortion.”

She quickly apologized. But Joe Biden, wiping a little saliva off his shoes, may have been grateful.