By Max Deveson
BBC News, Washington
Sarah Palin has been Zimbabwe rivals cannot agree on cabinet ...
Palin husband ordered to testify ...
Sarah Palin gives first interview ...
Palin's teenage daughter pregnant ... laying low at a McCain family ranch in Arizona since Monday, surrounded by senior campaign aides.
Meanwhile, Joe Biden has been practicing his lines with Democratic governor Jennifer Granholm of Michigan.
The vice-presidential candidates are engaged in intensive preparations for Thursday's hotly anticipated TV debate.
This will be their only public match-up, and both candidates know that this is their big chance to define themselves to the public.
One gaffe could make them a national laughing-stock and drag down their ticket; one killer line could resonate with voters and change the course of the election.
So how do candidates prepare for a debate?
Trusted team
Bob Bennett has helped Democratic candidates with their debate preparations in almost every election years since 1976.
"Every candidate has their own system," he says. "You need to tailor the process."
"And a candidate who has taken in part in 20 debates during the primaries will prepare differently from someone who has never done a debate."
Of the two candidates, it is Joe Biden who has had more national debating practice - he took part in a number of debates during his failed bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Mrs Palin has no experience of debating at this level - although she did debate her rivals when she ran for the Alaska governorship in 2006.
Practice
Although individual candidates differ in their approaches, most will begin their preparation by assembling a team made up of political aides and policy experts.
In the early stages, the team will sit round a table discussing likely questions and trying out possible answers.
The advisors' role ranges from critiquing the candidate's answers to actually drafting word-for-word responses to be used in the debate itself.
As the day of the debate nears, the candidate takes part in mock debates, with the role of the candidate's opponent being played by a trusted colleague.
Advisers on presentation will sit in, giving their thoughts on the candidate's appearance, and on how they are coming across.
Bullying
This year, Mr Biden is preparing for the debate by going up against Michigan Democratic governor Jennifer Granholm.
Ms Granholm, and the Biden aides watching the debates, will no doubt be paying particular attention to how Mr Biden handles debating a woman.
Mr Biden's biggest worry may be that he will come across as a bully or a show-off if he disputes Mrs Palin's answers, or patronising if he ignores any potential Palin mistakes.
In previous years, it was Bob Bennett's job to assume the role of the candidate's opponent.
He played George H W Bush for Geraldine Ferraro and Michael Dukakis, and Dick Cheney for Joe Lieberman and John Edwards.
Sometimes playing a candidate's opponent got him into trouble.
"When you're arguing really hard against your candidate, they can get annoyed," he says.
"Geraldine Ferraro punched me several times during debate prep."
Ms Granholm did tell reporters last week that she "wants to beat [Joe Biden] up a little bit, so he does well," but we can be pretty sure she was talking metaphorically.
And Mrs Palin is being trained for her debate by Brett O'Donnell, who coaches the debating team at Liberty University, a Christian college in Virginia, so there are unlikely to be any punches thrown at her preparation sessions either.
'Finger-pointing'
Since Monday, she has been undergoing intensive debate tuition with Mr O'Donnell at John McCain's ranch in Sedona, Arizona.
Also present are senior McCain aides like campaign manager Steve Schmidt and foreign policy adviser Randy Scheuneman.
Mr O'Donnell will be "undoing" some of Mrs Palin's earlier debate preparation, according to the Wall Street Journal, which had resulted in her producing "rote" responses.
She "flubbed quasi-mock debates" last week, the newspaper alleges, leading to "finger-pointing" within the McCain campaign.
Her advisers will work with her this week "to make sure her responses use 'her words'", the newspaper quotes an aide as saying.
Whichever words she ends up using on Thursday, this year's debate will be one of the most fascinating nights of the campaign so far.
Fascinating partly because it will not just be the two running-mates battling it out up there on stage - but also the large teams of debate coaches, presentation advisers and policy experts that they represent.
(BBC)
<< Back