I wonder what's made people skeptical?

Skepticism of Palin Growing, Poll Finds

With the vice presidential candidates set to square off today in their only scheduled debate, public assessments of Sarah Palin's readiness have plummeted, and she may now be a drag on the Republican ticket among key voter groups, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Tonight's heavily anticipated debate comes just five weeks after the popular Alaska governor entered the national spotlight as Sen. John McCain's surprise pick to be his running mate. Though she initially transformed the race with her energizing presence and a fiery convention speech, Palin is now a much less positive force: Six in 10 voters see her as lacking the experience to be an effective president, and a third are now less likely to vote for McCain because of her.

Gee, I wonder why 60% views her as unfit for office? Oh right, the awful interviews, the lying, the one speech she can give, and the scandals. I think 40% seeing her as fit is miraculously high. I guess these are the people who don't watch TV that often. Perhaps Charlie Sheen needs to rip out a Palin zinger on 2 and a Half Men to knock that number even further down. That half of the people who think she's unqualified see McCain as less fit is the telling stat. It used to be that it never really mattered who you chose, as long as they didn't have any 10 point, flashing neon scandals (and Palin didn't, she just had a lot of 3's and 4's) then people just didn't care and voted based on the top of the ticket. But if she's kneecapping Johnny while he's also kneecapping himself, well, Obama can fuck Bill Ayers in front of school children and still hit 300 electoral votes.

But this is where we see the threshold for tonight's debate. Left unsaid in McCain/Obama 1 was that by showing up and holding his own, Obama won over a lot of fence sitters who didn't know if he was President material. The same goes for Palin. If she can not embarrass herself during the time allotted, she can gain back some of the support she hemorrhaged away getting steamrolled by softballs from Katie Couric. Frankly, she just needs to show some Forrest Gump-ish level of intelligence, get off a homespun reference to hunting or taxes, get Biden to call her 'toots', avoid any questions of the "can you be more specific" variety and Palin won't do additional damage. Or she might blank and we'll get a hastily released suicide note from McCain as he pitches himself off the top of the Capitol building after the debate.