The Ground Rules:
The VP Debate tonight will be a similar structure to the first Presidential debate last week. The candidates will take the stage in the University of Washington, St. Louis, at 9:00 pm EST, where they will be grilled for 90 minutes by the moderator, PBS’s Gwen Ifill–who hosted the same fixture in 2004. The candidates will have 90 seconds to respond to questions, before a two minute discussion period. The setting with be the usual ocular adventure, with podiums, lights and … if we’re really lucky, the same conspicuous eagle as last week.
This is the one and only VP debate this year. As such, Ms. Ifill will look to cover a wide breadth of topics: economic, foreign and domestic. Judging by this today’s NYT/CBS poll which reported 89 percent of respondents believe the economy is “bad” and tumbling markets, the financial sector and the halting bailout proposal will likely entertain a lot of the candidates’ time.
Mark C. Partridge, Contributing Editor
