Transcript of the October 5th, 1988 Vice Presidential Debate:

QUAYLE: I have far more experience than many others that sought the office of vice president of this country. I have as much experience in the Congress as Jack Kennedy did when he sought the presidency. I will be prepared to deal with the people in the Bush administration, if that unfortunate event would ever occur.

WOODRUFF: Senator Bentsen.

BENTSEN: Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy, I knew Jack Kennedy, Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you are no Jack Kennedy. (Prolonged shouts and applause) What has to be done in a situation like that is to call in the -

WOODRUFF: Please, please, once again you are only taking time away from your own candidate.

QUAYLE: That was really uncalled for, Senator. (Shouts and applause)

BENTSEN: You are the one that was making the comparison, Senator – and I’m one who knew him well. And frankly I think you are so far apart in the objectives you choose for your country that I did not think the comparison was well-taken.

Palin’s only chance tonight is to somehow adopt the persaona of Abraham Lincoln (and hope Biden plays Douglas) in the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858. In the fall of 1858, the two leading candidates for U.S. Senate for Illinois held a series of public debates. The incumbent Senator, Steven A. Douglas, was much the better known candidate, being a prominent national leader of his Democratic party. His opponent, former Congressman Abraham Lincoln, was much less prominent, but as a Republican was strongly opposed to the extension of slavery into the western territories. Lincoln’s first line from the First Debate on August 21, 1858 could work for Palin:

“MY FELLOW-CITIZENS: When a man hears himself somewhat misrepresented, it provokes him-at least, I find it so with myself; but when misrepresentation becomes very gross and palpable, it is more apt to amuse him.”

Let’s just see if she will change ‘man’ to ‘woman’.