[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2008/images/09/29/art.bidendebate.ap.jpg "Joe Biden will face off with Sarah Palin in Thursday night’s vice presidential debate."]
WILMINGTON, Delaware (CNN) – As Joe Biden settles into debate prep mode this week ahead of Thursday night’s debate, campaign aides are actively playing up Sarah Palin’s debating skills. Biden’s spokesman called Palin “a leviathan of forensics,” a classic example of the campaign tactic of raising the expectations of an opponent and lowering your own.
“She's very skilled and she'll be well-prepared,” said Barack Obama’s chief strategist David Axelrod Sunday night, flying with Biden back to Delaware to help him get ready.
“As you saw at the convention she can be very good. So, I think it would be foolish to assume that this isn’t going to be a really challenging debate. We're preparing for that, on that assumption.”
Taking it one step farther, Biden spokesman David Wade later added, “he's going in here to debate a leviathan of forensics, who has debated five times and she's undefeated.”
Biden has a difficult task on his hands – not coming across as condescending with his decades of experience and not adopting a tone that could appear as though he’s treating Palin differently because she’s a woman.
“I think Governor Palin is a skilled politician,” said Axelrod. “She got elected in a very tough political arena against tough opponents and we're going to treat her with the respect that she deserves. And I think that she would expect that, I think voters should expect that.”
Axelrod argued that at the end of the day, the choice voters make is between the candidates at the top of the ticket and not the vice presidential candidates. However, he said VP nominees have a harder time preparing because they need to not only defend their own positions but those of their running mate, as well as knowing where both candidates on the opposing ticket stand.
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2008/images/09/28/art.palin.928.jpg caption="Gov. Sarah Palin will prepare for Thursday's debate from Arizona."]
(CNN)– Gov. Sarah Palin will now spend two and a half days near Sedona, Arizona, to prepare for Thursday's debate, instead of prepping in St Louis, as originally planned.
Sarah Palin will be at John McCain's rustic creek side home outside Sedona for what a top aide calls "debate camp."
The aide, who's part of the team prepping Palin, tells CNN they decided to take her to debate camp there because it is an "invigorating and enjoyable place to prepare for Thursday."
"SP [Sarah Palin] loves it and has her kids and Todd coming," wrote the aide in an email.
The aide said "John McCain himself came up with the idea after thinking it would be great before his next debate.
Pailin has already been hunkered down for four days in a Philadelphia hotel for debate prep with advisers.
She will take a short break Monday to attend a rally with McCain in Ohio, before heading to Arizona.
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2008/images/09/23/art.thecapitol.night.jpg caption="A rescue bill was released Sunday evening."]
WASHINGTON (CNN) - A draft bill to create a $700 billion bailout of the financial industry was released by members of Congress on Sunday.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California said she hopes the bill will be up for a vote Monday.
"We will have to have bipartisanship to pass it," she said.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - The federal government would provide as much as $700 billion in a far-reaching plan to rescue the nation's troubled financial system, according to a draft of the proposed bill obtained by CNN.
The legislation is still being negotiated and elements of the bill could still change.
The core of the bill is based on Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's request for authority to purchase troubled assets from financial institutions so banks can resume lending and so the credit markets, now virtually frozen, can begin to operate more normally.
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