The place to be right now is down the hall, around the corner and just over by the bathrooms where that great and near-mythological meeting place in American life and lore is located.
Where wisdom is dispensed, gossip spread, sports scores discussed, dates made or broken. You know: The water cooler.
"What did you think of Sarah?"
Or: "What did you think of Palin?"
(The use of first name in the question implies total support; use of last name implies skepticism.)
The simple fact that a question at this moment has more currency than a blanket statement -- "oh my God, what a train wreck" -- is the single biggest indication that Sarah Palin triumphed last night.
For it is written: It doesn't matter what the commentators said last night after the debate, but what your friends and colleagues said the next morning.
For it is also written: The fact that you are asking a question means that you're looking for a simple confirmation of the conclusion that you've already come to.
In this instance, that she did just fine. Expectations for a Palin disaster were so widespread that all she had to do was show up, nod and smile. The water-cooler judgment would still be benign.
Whenever I see an effective television performance by some made-for-TV politician, I reach for this book "YOU Are the Message: Getting What You Want By Being Who You Are." It's all there in 200-or-so pages -- why the performance matters, and how to get the best performance out of yourself when performing is either the first thing that comes naturally or the last.
The author was Roger Ailes, whom you know to be the chief of Fox News but was once (even more notably) the top Republican media consultant in the country. Irrespective of what you may think of Ailes, his book is full of wisdom and insight -- the manifesto for every political media consultant in the world, even though hundreds of books like this have been written twenty years after it first went into print.
The single biggest fault with the book is the title: It should read, "YOU Are the Message: Getting What You Want By Being What Others WANT You To Be."
What did Palin want viewers to think? Well, foremost, that she's not a blithering idiot.
Check.
That she could sort of think on her feet.
Check.
That she could pronounce the name of that guy in Iran, which even McCain had trouble with.
Check.
That she could restore some of the credibility lost after the Couric interviews and the Tina Fey parodies.
Check. Check.
That she mastered the art of not answering questions (and knowing the moderator wouldn't press hard for answers).
Check.
That she could use humor (even though she cynically set up Biden with the "can I call you, Joe?" so that she could come back with the "Say it ain't so, Joe" line).
Half-check.
What did she get from Ailes' book? I'd say just about everything, but just to pull a couple things out, I went for Ailes' advice on eye contact. That was was one of Palin's key strategems last night -- eye contact, with the audience, and NEVER with Gwen Ifill, because that would have meant looking DOWN, or with Joe Biden because that would have meant looking sideways and a little UP. Straight ahead, into the camera, locking on 50 pairs of eyes, and defying them to dislike her or what she had to say. Ailes had this to say about eyes: "Some people have the feeling that going before an audience is like going into a lion's cage. To me, that's a negative thought. But even if I were to think that, I'd keep my eye on the lion."
So many people -- and who knows? Maybe even McCain -- expected a belly flop last night, that Palin could -- and did -- work that to her advantage. Ailes wraps his book up with this: "If you can get the audience to pull for you, you'll always win. After all, audiences are just like you. They're human. They care. They're sympathetic. The audience wants you to succeed."
What's amazing the morning after is that no one seems to be asking the other obvious water-cooler question. "What did you think of Biden?" He was very, very good, in fact. But it's almost like he wasn't even there. I'm sure Ailes would have a lot to say about that, too.