Faceoff

After weeks of attention and controversy, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin finally answers questions tonight when she faces off with Delaware Senator Joe Biden in their first and only vice presidential debate.

The 44-year-old Alaska governor will go head to head tonight in the bellwether state of Missouri with the 65-year-old veteran senator who chairs the Senate's foreign relations committee and once led the judiciary committee. But it won't be a walk in the park for either candidate.

Palin has a reputation as a strong debater and defeated former governor Tony Knowles and former senator and governor Frank Murkowski to win her election in 2006. And although Biden has a command of foreign policy and national issues, Palin remains a popular figure with a compelling personal story.

Both sides have tried to downplay expectations for their candidate for Thursday's debate and to raise expectations for their opponent. But presidential elections are rarely decided based on the selection of the vice presidential candidate or on vice presidential debates. A gaffe by either candidate could be used against them in the remaining weeks of the campaign, but it's not clear that it would be enough for either side to win the election November 4.

The audience for tonight's showdown at Washington University in St. Louis could surpass the 52 million who watched the first debate between Obama and McCain last week, according to Reuters. If more than 57 million people watch the debate, it would surpass the previous record from the 1984 debate between George H.W. Bush, the current president's father, and Geraldine Ferraro, the first woman vice presidential nominee for a major party.

The debated will be moderated by PBS's Gwen Ifill, who also moderated the 2004 vice presidential debate between Dick Cheney and John Edwards. Some Republicans have criticized the selection of Ifill because she is the author of the forthcoming book, The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama, which Doubleday plans to publish on inauguration day, January 20, 2009.

But Ifill burshed off criticism, telling the media she's "got a pretty long track record covering politics and news." Currently the host of PBS' "Washington Week" and senior correspondent on "The NewsHour," Ifill previously worked for The New York Times, the Washington Post and NBC News.

Ifill's book has not been a secret and news stories dating back to August have mentioned it. But Ifill, who is black was quoted in the Associated Press as questioning the assumption that the book will be favorable toward Obama. "Do you think they made the same assumptions about Lou Cannon (who is white) when he wrote his book about Reagan?" she asked.

Daily Voice columnist Earl Ofari Hutchinson argues that the criticism of Ifill is a way to protect Palin. "The eleventh hour attack on Ifill's debate credentials also has nothing to do with her ability to be a fair and objective moderator," he writes in a column posted Thursday.

Another Daily Voice columnist, Pamela D. Reed, agrees, writing that GOP critics "hope to have a 'chilling effect' on Ifill, with the hope of rendering her 'toothless' in her role as an adversarial journalist."