Underestimate Sarah Palin at your peril, Biden warned

timesonline ^ | October 2, 2008 | Philippe Naughton

[rightinthemiddle]

Sarah Palin: danced around her rivals 'like Muhammad Ali'

One of Sarah Palin's former political foes has delivered a warning to Joe Biden before tonight's first televised vice-presidential debate: underestimate her at your peril.

The Alaskan state governor and moose-hunting "hockey mom" plucked from obscurity by the Republican nominee John McCain has been getting intensive coaching ahead of the debate from experts including the former Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger.

Republican concerns grew after interviews in which Ms Palin, 44, has appeared lost for words and supporters feared that a poor performance could deal a lethal blow to the McCain campaign in the same way that her performance at the Republican convention breathed life into it.

Her gaffes include citing Alaska’s proximity to Canada and Russia as giving her foreign policy experience.

But Mr Biden - who famously came a cropper during a primary debate in 1987 when he borrowed a line from the British Labour leader Neil Kinnock without crediting it - will be careful to avoid complacency, especially after an account in today's Los Angeles Times of Ms Palin's success in Alaska.

The newspaper said that Ms Palin had been "woefully unprepared" when she started her run for the Alaska governorship in late 2006, stumbling in her answers before an audience of electrical workers

But within a few weeks she was much more at ease and, in the words of one observer, she ended up flummoxing her rivals "like Muhammad Ali dancing around the ring".

[w1nston]

After watching the tapes of her in debates for the governorship of alaska(I think), chuckles SHOULD be scared.

Watching her smile that little smile right before sliding in the rhetorical knife sent shivers down my spine.