Sarah Palin has been getting as much, or even more attention than any of the other three candidates.  And yet she has not answered reporters questions and the few she has answered, she has not answered concisely.  There has been no substance at all and now members of her own party, former supporters, as questioning if she was the right choice after all.

Normally in a Presidential campaign, the candidate for President and the candidate for Vice President campaign separately. They are able to get their message out to more people faster.  That has not been the way with the McCain/Palin campaign.  Where he goes, she goes.  And if she is asked a question, most times it is McCain who gives the answer.  We have all seen it.  It has been right there on the TV.  She is not comfortable in interviews. She does not have her answers ready.  For instance, she gave the fact that Alaska is close to Russia as proof of her experience in foreign affairs. When Katie Couric asked her to explain what she meant, she could not answer except to say that Alaska’s neighbors were foreign countries.

Then this past week John McCain want to cancel the Presidential debate and go to Washington to work on the financial crisis. Right away he wanted to cancel the only Vice Presidential debate and have the canceled Presidential debate in its place.

It has been obvious from the get go that the McCain campaign has not been comfortable allowing Palin to answer questions on her own.  And that only makes the votes think that the main reason he picked her for a running mate was the fact that she is a woman, in an attempt to attract Hillary Clinton’s supporters. And now, not only the voters, but members of her own party as well, are stating to question her ability to fill in for John McCain if anything should happen that would make it impossible for him to act as President, if even for a little while. And the worse she looks, the more it reflects negatively on John McCain’s ability to make the right choices. It is all reflected in the polls.  Every day, Barack Obama is getting a bigger edge not only in the national polls, but in the state by state polls as well. Palin was expected to solidify Republicans, independents and Clinton Democrats behind McCain and it is not happening.

This Thursday, Palin goes head to head in debate with Joe Biden, a seasoned campaigner who has been in the Senate for 36 years and serves as Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.   Palin will not be able to give obtuse answers to direct questions.  She needs to be able to say not only what she would do, but how she would do it. She needs to hold her own against someone who has been here before.  Dollars to donuts, this debate will have a larger audience than the first Presidential one and if she does not hold her own, Republican leaders will have a hard time saying how good she did.