WASHINGTON-- Four years ago, Joe Biden was careful not to appear overly aggressive in his vice presidential debate with Sarah Palin, then a newcomer to the national stage. Now, as he prepares to debate Paul Ryan, a 14- year House veteran and the top Republican budget writer, Biden is less concerned about looking like a bully.
WASHINGTON, Oct 7- He has been stereotyped as the Obama administration's gaffe-prone sideshow. But Vice President Joe Biden also is a veteran debater who was in the U.S. Senate for a quarter century and is perhaps the Democratic White House's most passionate defender of the working class.
Final Nielsen data on Thursday showed that 67.2 million people across 11 TV networks watched Obama and Romney go head to head on the economy- a 28 percent increase on the 52.4 million who saw the first 2008 debate between Obama and Republican John McCain.
More than 37 million watched the 90- minute encounter on the four leading broadcast networks and 21 million turned to cable news channels CNN, Fox News and MSNBC, according to preliminary figures from Nielsen media. The viewing figures are expected to rise when final data is released by Nielsen later on Thursday that will include smaller TV networks.
But so far the former Alaska governor and her husband Todd Palin have not come forward to claim their share of a settlement fund established for victims of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill.
Republican presidential contender Tim Pawlenty said he can unite the party and defeat President Obama in 2012.
Well, of one thing I am certain—fiscal drag will offset monetary stimulus, and the result will be a torpid economy—with high unemployment and anemic growth. Hopefully, the Senate will be able to muscle enough change in the pending legislation to marginalize the economic drain, but I am not optimistic about that.
As we close in on the presidential election, most polls are showing Obama in the lead, as McCain still fights for the upset win. What do the Intrade markets show? www.intrade.com)