Building up and tearing down

On the eve of Thursday night's vice presidential debate, Democrats are trying to raise expectations for Republican Sarah Palin, who might have succeeded in lowering the bar with her spotty performances during a series of interviews with Katie Couric of CBS.

Republicans, meanwhile, are trying to tear down Democrat Joe Biden by questioning statements he has made.

Thursday night in St. Louis will be only the second vice presidential debate involving a woman, after the 1984 face-off between George H.W. Bush and Geraldine Ferraro. The debate is expected to vie for the most-watched vice-presidential face-off ever. The existing record is for the 1984 debate between Bush and Ferraro, with an estimated 56.7 million viewers. About 43.6 million watched the 2004 debate between Dick Cheney and John Edwards, according to Nielsen Media Research.

Also, a new national poll out today suggests that there are growing misgivings about Palin.

A majority -- 51 percent -- say she is not qualified to be president, a reversal from just after the Republican convention a month ago when 52 percent said she was qualified, the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press reported. Palin has lost ground among independents, and that is hurting John McCain, who made her his surprise running mate.

The growing doubts about Palin -- along with Barack Obama's debate performance and more confidence in his ability to deal with the deteriorating economy -- have helped the Democrat to a 49 percent to 42 percent lead among registered voters in the poll. The race was virtually even in recent Pew polls, and Obama had not held a significant lead since June.

Another poll released this afternoon also found more skepticism about Palin.

In the AP-Gfk survey, 25 percent of likely voters believe Palin has the right experience to be president, down from 41 percent just after the GOP convention.

The Democratic National Committee today sent out several stories that suggest that Palin more than held her own during debates while she ran for Alaska governor in 2006. One example: a Wall Street Journal report that begins, "There are two things people here remember about Sarah Palin's debating style during her race for governor two years ago. One is the stack of color-coded cue cards she took to the podium for help whenever she was asked a policy question. The other is how quickly she was able to shuck those props, master the thrust-and-parry of jousting with her opponents and inquisitors, and project confidence to an audience of television viewers watching from home."

Palin, who has been the subject of reams of unflattering coverage in recent weeks, said today on "The Early Show" on CBS that there has been a double standard. But she blamed it not on sexism, but because she is not "part of the Washington herd" and the media elite does not know who she is.

Palin told Katie Couric that it would be sexist if the media didn't question her about her experience, vision, principles and values.

Meanwhile, the Republican National Committee sent out a story in today's Globe, highlighting Biden's support for trial lawyers, among the least popular groups with the public. The story reports, "At an intimate, $2 million fund-raiser put on by a group of trial lawyers in a private home in Washington, D.C. last week, he boasted that he had 'done more than any other senator' for trial lawyers. There are 'two groups that stand between us and the barbarians at the gate,' he professed. 'It's you and organized labor.'"

Republicans are also trying to flog a statement that Biden made during a Democratic debate last year when he was talking about the difficulties of withdrawing from Iraq. "Let’s start telling the truth,” he said. “Number one, you take all the troops out — you better have helicopters ready to take those 3,000 civilians inside the Green Zone, where I have been seven times and shot at. You better make sure you have protection for them, or let them die, number one.”

He later told The Hill newspaper that a more accurate comment would have been, "I was near where a shot landed."

This morning, John McCain's campaign sent out a statement from Michael J. Durant, the Army helicopter pilot shot down and held captive in Somalia in 1993.

"Senator Biden claimed at a debate last year that he'd been 'shot at' while visiting Iraq. And he has claimed repeatedly, most recently last week, that his helicopter was 'forced down' in Afghanistan -- leaving his audience with the impression that it was fire from the Taliban which had grounded the aircraft. Neither of these stories appears to be true, and Senator Biden has never accounted for the discrepancies," Durant says in the statement.

"I've been on a helicopter that was 'forced down' by enemy fire, and I've been 'shot at.' Neither is easily confused with being caught in a snow storm or awakened by a loud bang in the night. Senator Biden has a responsibility to come clean on what actually happened, and explain why he would ever say such things to the American people. And with the Vice Presidential Debate coming up on Thursday, it is incumbent on the news media to ask Senator Biden the tough questions -- as they have so far failed to do -- and examine his responses closely for inconsistencies of the kind we've witnessed in recent months."

Republicans are comparing Biden's claims to Hillary Clinton falsely claiming that she landed under sniper fire during a humanitarian visit to Bosnia as first lady. Confronted with video footage contradicting her account, she acknowledged she misspoke, but the episode hurt her credibility.