Eric: You entered the wrong numbers for the Research 2000 Tracking Poll. It's Obama (51-42), not (41-42) as you currently have it.

... a McCain adviser said the goal will be for her debate answers to be "her words," and not campaign talking points that she's had trouble reciting properly.

This should be hilarious.

Biden should prepare by practicing appropriate responses to the most ludicrous non sequiturs his debate prep can come up with.

Just a thought,,,,,,,,,, perhaps Biden should do the debate in drag,,,,, Hillary and Finestein can coach him. Be a fun way to diminish the condescending and/or arrogant spin.

The look on Gwen Ifill's face would be a keeper as well.

For those who didn't see Saturday Night Live, with Tina Fey reprising her dead-on Sarah Palin impersonation:

http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/clips/couric-palin-open/704042/

Some Dems are worried that if Biden goes after Palin too aggressively, he could come off as a bully picking on a female candidate.

I think the answer is simple. Biden aims all his fire on the unhinged, batshit crazy McShame and basically ignores Palin. Of course, he should call her out if when she lies about Obama or about her own record, but otherwise, just remind people how dangerous it would be to have an impulsive, unstable lunatic as president and how good it will be to have a calm, intelligent grown-up in the White House, for a change.

I hope that they're not advising Biden to not challenge Palin at all. She's becoming a national joke, but not everyone out there is in on the joke yet. Right now, the only thing she's practicing is attack lines against Barack Obama. She's learning them by heart, and you can bet money that lots of them will be way below the belt. Religion, abortion, patriotism, hell maybe even drugs. She's going to try to derail this debate and turn it into the Attack Barack Hour.

Her only real value at this point to McCain is as rabid attackdog, with the hope that Democrats are afraid to touch her. I really want Biden to not fall into that trap. Everyone in the country knows that she shouldn't even be on the same stage as Biden, but he needs to keep her from becoming a one-woman Swiftboating operation. To do that, he'll need to know when and how to attack her own credibility.

Eric it is not 41-42....it IS 51-42
We know you still have hope Hillary will take over for Obama...but here is clue..NO FRIGGIN WAY!

Let's see -- we've got John Weaver saying that McCain needs to chill out and be less dramatic. Then we've got Bill Kristol in today's NY Times saying that McCain can only win if he becomes much more dramatic. Ouch - my poor head!

How about Biden use Tina Fey as a sparring partner?

Biden's biggest challenge in the debate will come immediately after Palin answers the first question Ifil poses. As the camera moves from Palin to Biden he must not be laughing.

Nobody noticed that in the debate, McCain referred to the Bin Laden led Mujahadeen as 'Freedom Fighters'

Read About it Here
http://www.newsone.com/elections/article/mccain-called-bin-laden-a-freedom-fighters

That's when Bin Laden and his compatriots were fighting the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, with generous CIA support. Right?

Moose49 wrote: "Biden aims all his fire on the unhinged, batshit crazy McShame and basically ignores Palin"

I think this is right.

Biden should be polite, gracious and respectful towards Sarah Palin -- and otherwise pretty much ignore her, while relentlessly attacking McCain.

Biden should emphasize that the important question is not whether Sarah Palin is qualified to be vice president but whether John McCain is qualified to be president, and that McCain's record of consistently supporting disastrous Bush policies, his poor judgment, his reckless erratic behavior, and his deep ties to the corrupt corporate lobbyists who run his campaign, all show that the answer to that question is a resounding NO.

I doubt that Biden will have to do very much to demonstrate to the American people that Sarah Palin is hideously unqualified for national office. She will take care of that herself.

On the other hand, Sarah Palin's record in public office -- a record of mismanagement, negligence, incompetence, fiscal irresponsibility, dishonesty, cronyism, ideological extremism, divisiveness, and vindictive abuse of power -- is fair game, particularly if Biden is able to point out that those are the very qualities of the Bush administration that have created the profound problems the country faces today.

My $.02 (they're probably worth less than that, actually):

I think Biden should start all of his responses with "you're smarter than that, Governor" and then go though what she doesn't know. It avoids the perception of being condescending while at the same time point out the substance that she's lacking.

I think a big problem with Palin that's overlooked is she's probably much more comfortable being in charge and in the #1 spot. There's a huge difference with being the #2 person and having to echo policies and follow orders. Remember she was very unhappy while in the Oil&Gas commission and ended up stabbing the repubs in the back to get out of that role. Personality-wise, she's just not someone suited for a VP role, ignoring all her other flaws. I think that's why she's doing so badly when she doesn't have a teleprompter to tell her what to say.

GAMBLERS FOR mcCain is placing bets on how many questions she can actually answer. In case you miss the founding of this important group, click here:

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/09/gamblers-for-mccain.php

According to HuffPo, the campaign is now pushing Palin out in front of the cameras and will do more interviews. Maybe they are just getting her comfortable for the debate, or maybe they realize her negatives are so low with them hiding her and thus putting so much focus on the interviews she does do that it's better off if she is over-exposed to the point folks just get used to her.

Also it seems like she is going to attack Biden and try to get him riled up to fire back at her, to which the Republicans can play the sexism victim card.

A McCain surrogate was on Fox this morning saying Gwen Ifill will have "a lot to answer for" if she asks too many foreign policy questions. Threatening the moderator is always a good tactic.