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During her interview with the CBS Evening News that will air tonight Sarah Palin defended her joke about listening Joe Biden speak since she was in the second grade age by saying that her stump speech joke had nothing to do with age or John McCain. She tried to sell herself as the new fresh face, but she is more like new Coke than new politics.

Here is the video:



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I really have to hand it to Katie Couric. She asks basic questions, but she is great on the follow up. She doesn’t let anybody off the hook. When Couric asked, “You have a 72-year-old running mate, is that kind of a risky thing to say, insinuating that Joe Biden’s been around awhile?” Palin had no choice but to deny it and try to spin herself as the new fresh face, but the problem with using Palin as a fresh faced agent for change is that the guy at the top of her ticket is the exact opposite of what she is trying to sell.

Palin’s answer about being the fresh face sounded almost robotic and didn’t match the tone of the conversation. Her answer was a talking point. The selection of Palin has caused a sort of split personality/theme effect in the McCain campaign. John McCain could have selected a fresh face that fit in with the themes of his campaign. He could have selected someone who might not have been nationally known, but had experience on an issue like national security or the economy.

Instead they chose Sarah Palin, who doesn’t fit in with any of the campaign’s themes. I don’t think Palin is going to be able to skim through a debate with Biden by talking about him as the Washington insider on Thursday night. Debates are about issues, which means that Palin is going to have to get off of the talking points. A bigger problem is that every time Palin mentions Biden’s age or experience, people think of her running mate.

As you can see from the video above, Palin doesn’t bring anything to the table that helps the campaign policy wise, so they are trying to sell Sarah the personality, but that won’t work. I wonder if the McCain camp wakes up everyday and wishes that they would have added an economic expert to the ticket instead of an inexperienced, political lightweight, hockey mom?