Debate day reading list: how to prep for Sarah Palin and Joe Biden's battle

In case you haven't heard, Sarah Palin and Joe Biden will square off for their first and only vice presidential debate tonight. We will be live-blogging it here, beginning at 5:30 p.m. PST, like we did for the first presidential debate.

Palin and Biden have been preparing for this for days (we've seen photographic proof). So The Ticket thinks it's only fair that the audience brush up a bit, too.

So we present you with a debate day reading list -- a compilation of the best debate-related stories from all over the Internet:

In a major must-read, our own Stephen Braun and Tom Hamburger go to Alaska to find out what kind of an opponent Palin was in the Alaskan gubernatorial debates.

Meanwhile Politico asks a psychic her predictions of which candidate will perform better (the verdict: the stars are not aligned for Palin).

Politico also has a story that probes Palin's debate history.

Our friends at The Swamp lay out five goals that each candidate will try to accomplish, and veteran political reporter Cathleen Decker writes in The Times about the stakes if they don't.

And finally, there’s an LA Times opinion piece that calls for the role of vice president to be abolished completely. Constitutional scholar Bruce Ackerman has an interesting point. But don't let it keep you away from the debate -- or our coverage -- tonight.

-- Kate Linthicum

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Comments

[steve rodriguez]

Who is this Barry Obama? What's he ever done?

[Douglas]

I am anxious to count the number of gaffes by Biden that will be ignored, brushed off, or chuckled about in contrast to the outrage over any gaffe of Palin's. Even your piece above concentrates on Palin rather than a balance between the two. Do you ever wonder if the public likes Palin precisely because the media doesn't?

[Angeloo]

THIS DEBATE IS NOT CHANGING MY VOTE. I ALREADY KNOW ENOUGH! McCain Palin chose not to give us the information we needed to make a decision so we went and got it from everyone else. So now they can just get to steppin

[steve rodriguez]

Then man who will Unite us Barrack Obama is recruiting people to protest Sarah Palins appearance in Dallas today! Check-out the Obama campaign website! So much for unity and free speech!