From The Politico:
Sarah Palin plans to go on the attack in tonight’s debate, hitting Joe Biden for what she will call his foreign policy blunders and penchant for adopting liberal positions on taxes and other issues, according to campaign officials involved in prepping her for tonight’s showdown.
The Palin camp is projecting surprising self-confidence in the pre-debate hours, despite the vice presidential nominee’s uneven — and, at some points, peculiar — performances in recent television interviews, the officials say. Top advisers to John McCain privately say Palin’s recent CBS interview was a borderline disaster, especially since it played out in several segments over several days. Tonight will be different, they say.
“This is going to finally put her back into a position where we see her like we saw her the first couple weeks,” a McCain official said. “She was herself. She was authentic, and people related to that. ... Tonight, she’ll get into a rhythm. You’re going to see her in a way that you haven’t seen her yet.”
Political Punch:
In an interview with Sean Hannity this week, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin focused on a foreign policy flip-flop by Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.: his May 24, 2007 vote against reauthorizing funding for U.S. troops in Iraq because the bill did not include a timetable for troop withdrawal.
“Proposing and voting for cutting off funding for our troops while they're in a war zone is so reckless and so political,” Palin said. “And Biden had even called Obama on that one. Remember, he said, 'Obama, your move there was political, and it’s gonna cost lives.' And yet, Obama, after promising that he would not cut off funding for troops in the war zone, he voted to do so anyway.”
ABC News' Imtiyaz Delawala, who covers Palin, suggests that she will use this line of attack this evening at the first and only vice presidential debate in St. Louis.
“So reckless, irresponsible -- we're gonna lay that out there and again let Americans judge for themselves who they would like to see as commander in chief: John McCain, who knows how to win a war, or Sen. Obama, who has voted to cut off funding for our troops?” Palin continued, repeating a charge that the McCain-Palin campaign is also making in a TV ad that also uses Sen. Joe Biden's words against Obama.
Political Punch also shows two videos, showing Biden's words against Obama and they end the ABC piece ends with:
But it might be more problematic for Biden to defend Obama on the vote, which Palin will assuredly raise in this evening's debate. Biden has already criticized the vote as pandering that could cost American lives. How do you walk that statement back?
Tonight be very interesting indeed.
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