Elections Today
- Pennsylvania
Recent Projections
| State | Candidate | Delegates |
|---|---|---|
 Donald Trump | ||
Pennsylvania |  Joe Biden |
Game On! Biden, Palin Ready for VP Debate
Expectations game begins in earnest as Biden, Palin head to Thursday debate.
Sept. 30, 2008 -- Conventional political wisdom suggests it's the top of the ticket not a vice presidential contender that wins or loses votes in a presidential election.
But 2008 has been anything but a conventional election.
Since the late additions of the vice presidential candidates to their respective party tickets last month, anticipation of their first meeting on the debate stage has been mounting.
On Thursday night in St. Louis it will reach culmination: Democratic vice presidential candidate and Washington veteran Sen. Joe Biden squares off against his Republican counterpart, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, in their one-and-only debate of the election cycle.
One presidential debate and a weekend of analysis behind it, the political expectations game for the vice presidential matchup has begun in earnest. The Obama-Biden campaign is trying to set the expectations bar low for its candidate while building up the debate face of its rival.
"I think that if you go back and look at the debates that Gov. Palin's had as a candidate, she's very skilled and she'll be well-prepared. I know she's preparing this weekend," said David Axelrod, chief strategist for the Obama campaign. "As you saw at the convention, she can be very good, so I think it would be foolish to assume that this going isn't going to be a really challenging debate."
Axelrod contends that Biden isn't headed into the debate "to go after Gov. Palin" but rather "to make the case for Sen. Obama."
Biden spokesman David Wade played the expectations game to an even greater extreme, characterizing Palin as a formidable opponent.
"He's going in there to debate a leviathan of forensics, who has debated five times and she's undefeated in debates," Wade said.
At a joint rally with Sen. John McCain in Columbus, Ohio, Monday, the Alaska governor praised her running ticket's Friday performance and promised the cheering crowd, "I'll do my part in St. Louis this week."
"I do look forward to Thursday night and debating Sen. Joe Biden," Palin said before mocking the Delaware senator's more than 30 years on Capitol Hill. "I'm looking forward to meeting him, too. I've never met him before. But, I've been hearing about his Senate speeches since I was in the second grade."
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