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Departing St Louis for Wilmington, Biden gave the press corps a double thumbs up — saying he felt good about his debate against GOP rival Sarah Palin. Watch him leaving Missouri above.

ST LOUIS, MO – Talk about raising expectations.

Obama campaign manager David Plouffe joined Vice Presidential Nominee Joe Biden and a host of Biden’s family on the flight from Wilmington to St Louis – likening Sarah Palin to a modern day Daniel Webster.

“Governor Palin is one of the best debaters in American politics,” Plouffe told the larger-than-normal group of reporters in the back of the plane.

Some in the press corps chortled.

“No, she is!” Plouffe insisted. “Her 2006 debate, she knew where she wanted to take every question, and so I think she’ll be relentlessly on message tonight.”

Plouffe said he’s watched all of the Governor’s debates, from her failed 2004 race for Lieutenant Governor to her victorious run against ex-Governor Tony Knowles and Republican state powerhouse Frank Murkowski in 2006.

“We expect that she’ll have very witty, biting lines that she’ll get off tonight. All of you that are like figure skating judges will give her some credit for that,” he said. “But we think that the American people who are watching at home tonight who are economically challenged, who are fundamentally unhappy with the direction of this country, Joe Biden will do a very good job speaking to that.”

“Obviously there’ll be a lot of viewers tonight, so it’s a great opportunity for Senator Biden to articulate the message that he and Barack Obama are taking to the country.”

As for the controversy surrounding tonight’s moderator, PBS’s Gwen Ifill, Plouffe was unimpressed. “It’s another in a long line of manufactured controversies. Tom Brokaw was in the paper recently talking about his communication with the McCain campaign and their friendship, so I assume they’ll apply the same standard,” he said — comparing Ifill to the moderator of the next presidential debate.

“They’re a campaign that’s filled with distractions that is trying to manufacture news to try and quote/unquote win news cycles.”

Plouffe also addressed what has been a very good week for the Obama campaign, which holds strong leads in several battleground states according to recent polls.

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Washington -- AP Photo

WILMINGTON, DE — Joe Biden is as ready as he’s going to be.

The Delaware Senator has been holed up all week at a downtown hotel with Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm; the former beauty queen played fellow pageant winner and Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin in Democratic debate prep, which wrapped up before Biden traveled to Washington for last night’s votes.

The preparations themselves were run by Obama’s chief strategist, David Axelrod, who told reporters this week that Biden is preparing just as he would for any debate — but that VP contests present a unique challenge.

“Vice-presidential debates are the most difficult because - regardless of who the candidates are – because, you know, in a presidential debate you have your record, the opponent’s record, your views, the opponent’s views,” Axelrod said. “In a vice-presidential debate, you’ve got to think about your own record, the candidate’s record, the opponent — and this is primarily gonna be a debate about where the principals, the presidential candidates, want to take the country, but there’s more to keep track of.”

Democrats, including Obama supporter and Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill, have worried about Biden’s propensity for putting his foot in his mouth — and others are concerned that the 36-year senator could come off as condescending when debating a woman without the same experience. Axelrod suggested that Biden will stick to the script.

“I don’t think he’s going there to go after Governor Palin. I think he’s going there to make the case for Senator Obama,” he said. “I think Governor Palin is a skilled politician. She got elected in a very tough political arena against tough opponents and we’re going to treat her with the respect that she deserves.”

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MILWAUKEE, WI - Is Biden dropping out as Barack Obama’s Runing mate?

No. Those rumors are ridiculous.

But he told Wisconsin firefighters today that he’s worried he might be replaced.

“I’m a little concerned today. We badly need Wisconsin,” Biden said at a fishfry in suburban Milwaukee. “I was on a call this morning with the national campaign folks, which we do every morning, and they didn’t know I was on the call, and I heard, I heard Ryan Braun’s name being mentioned.”

And the punch line: “There was a suggestion made that maybe, they wanted to know whether the constitution allows you to change Vice Presidents at the very end here.”

That line brought applause and laughs from the local crowd, which knows Braun as an overnight hero in Milwaukee — after he single-handedly kept the baseball Brewers in the playoff chase with a walk-off, 10th inning grand slam last night.

“Didn’t you all dream about when you were a kid, a walk off grand slam? In the tenth inning? Whoa!” Biden said. “I tell you what, I’d be willing to let him be Vice President if he’d let me take credit for that grand slam, I tell ya. My lord.”

Biden, who was a football star in high school in Wilmington, Delaware, continued “I tell you, what I wanted to do was not sign autographs on the back of pieces of paper, I was looking to sign autographs on baseballs. It never got that far.”

WILKES-BARRE, PA — As his running mate prepared for the economic summit at the White House, Joe Biden praised Barack Obama for reaching out to John McCain to unite the rival campaigns to solve the crisis.

“Unlike all the rest of the people talking, he’s demonstrated that he’s changed the tone. He’s prepared to change the tone in Washington,” he said. “Ladies and gentlemen, this is what we mean by leadership, not posturing.”

But not exactly changing that tone himself, the Delaware Senator bashed McCain’s economic proposals, saying they contain nothing for the middle class.

Speaking on the banks of the Susquehanna River, minutes from his birthplace in Scranton, Biden laid out what Obama would say to President Bush in their meeting this afternoon.

“In 16 minutes, Barack Obama’s going to walk into the White House with George W. Bush and four congressional leaders and John McCain, and he’s going to lay out for the Democrats what we insist be part of rectifying the crisis we face,” Biden said - listing Obama’s four proposals for the federal bailout of financial institutions.

But while he said yesterday that McCain and Obama are basically in agreement on those principles, Biden said McCain’s plan announced today ignores hard working people on Main Street — and implied that his campaign suspension amounts to posturing, not real leadership.

“You wanted to know the difference between John and Barack? John McCain put out his own principles about 2, 3 hours ago. He laid out what he thought the package should include,” Biden said. “I looked it over, and what’s notable is, what’s notable is what is not in the package. The silence on issues relating to the middle class is deafening in the package John has put forward.”

“There is no help in his package for families struggling to stay in their homes. If John keeps changing his rhetoric but not changing the worn out philosophy that got us in this spot — If John continues to do that, ladies and gentlemen, why is John expecting us to believe he would be an agent of change?” he said.

“That’s the reason we need change. We need change because you’re not seeing one single piece of evidence in the last 8 years, and I would argue even before that, in terms of his voting record.”

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CINCINNATI, OH — Joe Biden delivered a scathing attack on John McCain’s foreign policy judgment in a speech designed to convince voters that “it is absolutely, unequivocally clear that Barack Obama is more prepared to be commander in chief of the United States of America than John McCain.”

On issue after issue, Biden said, “John McCain is more than wrong — he is dangerously wrong” — painting a picture of a blustery, trigger-happy leader who’s out of touch with the modern world.

Many of the foreign policy attacks were familiar, but there were some new, pointed jabs, including:

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CINCINNATI, OH — Big, long, dense speech from Joe Biden on McCain’s foreign policy today, which I’ll parse a little more in depth soon. But first, one face-off between Biden and the facts that, once again, the facts seem to have won.

Criticizing McCain for opposing negotiations with Iran, Biden said even the Bush administration now favors such talks — which Obama has long supported.

“After seven years, in which our senior diplomatic personnel were not allowed to make a single contact with Iranians, the Bush administration realized the absurdity of its own policy and sent our leading diplomat to Iran,” he said. “The Assistant Secretary of State as he went to Tehran, sat down at the instruction of the President of the United States.”

It sounds great for Obama and Biden that the president came around to something so close to their position on talks with Iran; trouble is, the event Biden described never actually happened.

In point of fact, the one “meeting” that has taken place was in Geneva, Switzerland, when Under Secretary of State William Burns sat in on a discussion between Iranian representatives and the other “P5 +1″ political directors involved in nuclear talks. The meeting, while a first, was not a negotiation; Burns was there merely as an observer, and had no formal role or talks with the Iranians.

So, point by point: Burns was not sent to Tehran; he did not go to Tehran; and there was no such instruction from the President.

Why the story from Biden? Turns out, he was taking a characteristic detour from his prepared text. Here’s the far more factually accurate version of what he was supposed to say:

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WASHINGTON, DC — Another case of Joe being Joe.

The Delaware Senator took issue with an attack ad from his own side in an interview with CBS, telling Katie Couric that the Obama hit on McCain’s ignorance of computers and technology was “terrible.” The ad paints McCain as out of touch — and all but calls him ancient — but doesn’t mention that the Arizona Senator’s war injuries actually prevent him from using computers for an extended period.

Asked whether he’s disappointed with the tone of the campaign, including the ad that Couric characterized as “making fun of John McCain’s inability to use a computer,” Biden said “I thought that was terrible by the way.

“I didn’t know we did it and if I had anything to do with it, we would have never done it”

But Biden said he didn’t think there was anything intentionally personal in the ad — and argued that it doesn’t sink to the level the McCain ad accusing Obama of voting to teach kindergarteners about sex. The Obama campaign says the bill would help children avoid predators. “Very different in degree,” Biden said.

Still, the McCain campaign pounced on the VP nominee’s comments.

“While the New York Times and other media outlets were silent in the face of Barack Obama’s shameless and dishonorable attack on John Mccain, even Obama’s own running mate has now condemned the ad as terrible,” said spokesman Brian Rogers in a statement. “Barack Obama has brought the sleazy gutter politics of Chicago to our national stage, exposing his call for a ‘new politics’ as a lie and embarrassing even his own running mate with the low road campaign he’s running.”

But as the moment went viral, hitting the internet traffic engine the Drudge Report, Biden revised and extended his remarks in a statement — saying he hadn’t even seen it when he condemned it.

“Having now reviewed the ad, it is even more clear to me that given the disgraceful tenor of Sen McCain’s ads and their persistent falsehoods, his campaign is in no position to criticize,” he said, “especially when they continue to distort Barack’s votes on an issue as personal as keeping kids safe from sexual predators.”

The interview, which aired on Monday, was filmed in Ohio on Thursday.

AKRON, OH — The second part of Sarah Palin’s second TV interview airs tonight on Hannity & Colmes, but Joe Biden’s waiting for one more until he passes judgment on the Alaska Governor.

Speaking at a union hall in Ohio’s industrial Northeast, Biden told the crowd “I was told I’ve done 68, 70 press conferences. And the person says what do you think about Sarah Palin?”

“I said, when she does 3 I’ll let you know. I don’t know. I don’t have any idea.”

To be fair, Biden’s actually held 2 press conferences since the Democratic convention; one of those was limited to questions about Hurricane Gustav. The other, in which he took close to 14 minutes to answer a single question on Iraq, was 11 days ago. Aides say he was referring to TV interviews.

The Delaware Senator didn’t spare Palin’s running mate any ridicule for being press shy.

“Look guys, it’s not just Sarah Palin,” he continued. “When’s the last time John’s had a press conference? I’m serious!” For the record, it’s been more than a month.

Addressing Ohio Governor Ted Strickland, Biden said “Ted, you and I know, when elected officials stops holding press conferences, it ain’t because he’s found a new way to communicate, it’s because he doesn’t want to communicate

MAUMEE, OH — Joe Biden devoted the first leg of his 2-day bus tour through Ohio to a sound thrashing of John McCain for being for deregulation of the financial markets before he was against it — saying McCain “fell off his horse” on the Road to Damascus.

The Delaware Senator ridiculed McCain for saying the fundamentals of the economy are strong, then saying two hours later that we’re in a great economic crisis. “This boy had what they called a political epiphany, not a policy one,” he told a vocal crowd of 1,500 in this small town near Toledo.

“If John cares so much about this now, where was he a week ago? Where was he a month ago? Where was he 5 years ago? I’ll tell you where he was. He was bragging to the folks on Wall Street, the executives who now he calls greedy, he was bragging to them how he was going to shred the regulation that fetters them, that ties them down,” Biden said, calling those regulations “the very things that protected ordinary people on Main Street.”

“All of a sudden it’s ‘my goodness there’s greed on Wall Street. My goodness we need common sense regulation. My goodness,’” he continud. “This is a simple simple choice people have. It’s a choice between those who think that the marketplace and the corporations and the wealthy of America should go unfettered and have no regulation, and those of us who think there should be common sense rules to protect transparency so people can see the ability to know where your dollars are going.”

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