VP debate draws 70 million viewers

Beau Biden and his unit took part in the deployment ceremony in Dover, Del. The unit is headed to Iraq. (Rob Carr/Associated Press)

They may be the undercard on the ticket, but Sarah Palin and Joe Biden drew far more viewers for their bout than their running mates did for theirs last week, the largest-ever audience for a vice presidential debate and the second-largest for any debate.

Nielsen Media Research reported yesterday that about 69.9 million people watched Thursday night's debate, compared with about 52.4 million who saw John McCain and Barack Obama go at it Sept. 26. "Although scheduling the debate on a Thursday was obviously a factor in attracting more viewers than the presidential debate last Friday, public curiosity about Sarah Palin clearly drove these higher ratings," Nielsen said.

The viewership figure equaled the second George H. W. Bush-Bill Clinton-Ross Perot presidential debate in 1992, and was exceeded only by the Jimmy Carter-Ronald Reagan debate in 1980 that drew 80.6 million viewers. The audience smashed the previous record for most-watched vice presidential face-off: Bush vs. Geraldine Ferraro in 1984 with 56.7 million viewers. The 2004 version between Dick Cheney and John Edwards, for comparison, drew 43.6 million.

PBS, which does its ratings separately, said an estimated 3.5 million viewers watched its debate coverage, compared with 2.6 million last week.

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Nader voices displeasure on passage of bailout plan
Count Ralph Nader out of the crowd relieved that Congress passed and President Bush signed the financial bailout package yesterday.

"The whole thing was a special interest boondoggle, around the core of a $700 billion blank check," Nader told the Globe.

The longtime consumer activist, waging a long-shot presidential campaign for the third consecutive election, asserted that the legislation does not have any comprehensive regulations to stop the Wall Street crisis from happening again, offers no guarantee that taxpayers will get their $700 billion stake back, does not make clear how the bailout will be financed, and was larded up with huge tax breaks and other goodies.

Instead, Nader supports a Wall Street speculation tax, starting on derivatives, that he says would generate enough money to eliminate federal taxes on the first $50,000 of income. Nader, who plans a rally at 11 a.m. tomorrow at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, predicted that frustrated voters will go after members of Congress who voted for the package. "They're drinking champagne, they've got their pens from Bush, but when they go back home, wait for the hornets nest," he said in a phone interview.

And that anger, Nader said, will boost his campaign. "It's a big door for us," he said. ". . . If voters want someone who did them in, they can vote for Obama or McCain."

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Biden speaks at son's deployment ceremony
In the era of the all-volunteer military, it is rare for national politicians to have children serving in war zones.

But yesterday, Beau Biden, the son of Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden, began his journey to Iraq, where Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's 19-year-old son Track deployed last month.

The senator spoke at the deployment ceremony in Dover for Beau Biden, 39, Delaware's attorney general who is a lawyer in the state's National Guard. Biden said he has spoken at such ceremonies before as a US senator. "Today I come as a father," he said in brief remarks. "My heart is full of love and pride."

"Thank you for answering the call of your country," he told the Guard members. "Stand strong, stand together, serve honorably, and come home to your families that love you."

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McCain camp attacks ads assailing healthcare plan
It's becoming clear where Barack Obama's camp believes Thursday night's vice presidential debate left a soft spot for Republican rival John McCain: healthcare.

Obama's first statement after the debate focused on McCain's proposal to offer a $2,500 tax credit for individuals and $5,000 for families. The tax credit, however, would be offset because workers would no longer be able to exclude the value of insurance coverage paid by their employers from their taxes.

Obama's campaign says that amounts to "taxing healthcare benefits for the first time in history." It quickly followed up yesterday by unveiling two TV ads on the issue. One shows McCain's running mate, Sarah Palin, promoting the healthcare tax credit during the debate, then shows Obama's running mate Joe Biden firing back: "Taxing your healthcare benefit. I call that the 'ultimate Bridge to Nowhere.' "

The McCain campaign said the ad is "dishonest and false."

"Oddly, instead of shying away from an outright lie told by Joe Biden last night, the Obama campaign appears willing to double-down on his reckless dishonestly," spokesman Tucker Bounds said in a statement.

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Ifill receives high marks for how she moderated debate
The biggest winner in the vice presidential debate might not have been either candidate.

The moderator, Gwen Ifill of PBS, was assailed by some conservative commentators because she is writing a book that features Barack Obama that is to be published on Inauguration Day.

Ifill, however, is receiving high marks for equal treatment of the candidates. In a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll of debate watchers, 95 percent said Ifill treated the candidates fairly, while only 4 percent said she was unfair.

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