Read "Game Change".

I read "Game Change" (that book on the 2008 campaign) in like 5 days (had to wait a while to get it from the library on campus; there were like 2 or 3 people ahead of me on the waiting list).

Two things:

1) Though people didn't know it, McCain seems to have been as dangerous for the U.S. as Palin; he made many major decisions based on how they felt and how they fed into his self-image - "Im a risk-taker!", he would say a lot, or something like that - and shirked necessary duties (like debate prep), and didn't do necessay long-term planning (like doing in-depth screening on VP candidates!)...

Talking to my dad, he was like, "I can see that, the guy's a lightweight. What was his rank in the naval academy again?", and then said that McCain got a free pass from the media for years on his image, but his erraticness came out in the campaign.

2) For the VP debate, Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm helped Joe Biden to prep - by studying Palin's debate-style in-depth through transcripts and YouTube clips, and then debating in her style, complete with long, rambling answers and convoluted syntax, and occasional Palin-like gaffes, such as ending an answer on race with a homestyle joke making fun of a Obama through a reference to "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?".

I would pay through the nose to see tapes of those mock debates. If I ever am at a Q&A with Granholm, I want to ask her what she did to prepare and get in persona, and whether she thought it helped Biden.