Live-Blog: Vice Presidential Debate screening in the Whitehurst Living Room

Welcome to The Collegian's blog about the 2008 vice presidential debate. This is the third live blog for The Collegian during the election.

Dan Petty, our online editor, was blogging live for The New York Times. Click here to read his posts.

Scroll to the end of this blog to see comments students have added about the vice presidential debate. Please add your own comments if you would like.

Here are the people who contributed to our blog tonight:

Rasheed Nazeri -- Richmond College '10, Co-Coordinator of UR Students for Barack Obama

Daniel Colosimo -- Richmond College '09, Liberal Commentator

Nate Goodman -- Richmond College '10, Conservative Commentator

Debate Recap, with commentary:

10:30 p.m. -- Both candidates are bickering over rhetoric. Palin said that John McCain was a maverick. Biden said McCain was not a maverick on issues that affected Americans at the "kitchen table."

Palin responded to the negative press by saying that she was glad to have the opportunity to talk directly the American people without the "filter" of mainstream media.

Biden said that we can't measure America by how well the people at the top were doing. We need to measure progress by how the middle class is doing.

10:20 p.m. -- Palin said that, though she disagrees with McCain on some issues, she would take up McCain's mantle of getting government out of peoples lives.

Palin has really broken through with her natural sharp wit and caustic responses.

Biden: "Vice President Cheney has been the most dangerous vice president in the history of the United States."

10:10 p.m. -- Palin has certainly settled down. I said from the outset that Palin's job was to not make any major missteps. She is succeeding. Everybody knew that Biden would have a good feel for the issues and would draw from his experience. Palin has not just been reverting to generalities but is even engaging Biden on issues.

Palin said that McCain knows how to win a war.

Biden said that if he had to take up the job as president he would pursue Obama's policies.

Biden: "I agree, in essence, with every major policy initiative [Obama] has put forward."

10 p.m. -- Biden: "All of our allies overseas are telling us to sit down and talk with them. Talk, talk, talk. Two weeks ago John McCain said that he wouldn't sit down with the leader of Spain! A NATO ally!"

Palin: "For a ticket that talks so much about change and looking into the future, they do to much backward finger-pointing to make us believe that that's where they're going."

Palin said the surge principles that worked in Iraq need to be implemented in Afghanistan.

Biden: "The commanding general of our forces in Afghanistan said today that the surge principles that we implemented in Iraq would not work in Afghanistan."

9:50 p.m. -- Palin said that McCain would commit to keeping troops in Iraq until victory. She said Obama voted against funding troops in Iraq.

Biden said McCain voted against the same vote that Obama cast against funding troops, on the basis that there would be a time line for withdrawal attached to the funding.

Palin has a much better command of foreign policy than what she displayed in her interview with Katie Couric. She is absolutely on message. She is now forcing Biden to go on the defensive and that is where she needs to keep him.

Palin said Obama has promised to sit down without preconditions with nations such as Iran, whose leader has called for the destruction of Israel.

Of the 224 people we polled this past week, we found that 59.2 percent said the war in Iraq and Afghanistan was the No. 1 foreign policy issue.

9:40 p.m. -- Biden: "It is virtually impossible tostop climate change without knowing what started it."

The moderator cut Palin off mid-answer but gave Biden a minute to respond.

Students in Whitehurst clapped when Biden said that homosexual couples would have the same rights as heterosexual couples.

Palin and Biden both said that they do not support constitutionally redefining marriage.

9:30 p.m. -- Biden has a firm command of the issues. Palin is holding her own. Palin is doing what she needs to do. One of the things that gets Palin into trouble is that she begins to answer questions that she doesn't have solid responses for. She is demonstrating some sharp wit.

Students in Whitehurst have been laughing when Palin uses "folksy" language. This is something that can get Palin into trouble but can also be an asset for her with blue-collar voters.

Palin's position on climate change seems to be that, while she does not want to completely blame man for climate change, she said we need to acknowledge climate change is real and start working with other countries to find solutions.

A poll The Collegian conducted this past week revealed that 63.8 percent of students think Obama is the best candidate to handle energy policy.

9:25 p.m. -- Apologies for the technical glitch. Palin started with a great deal of poise but seems to be getting flustered. Biden is confident and has command of the issues. Palin said that Obama and Biden would raise taxes.

Biden: "Under Barack Obama's plan, 95 percent of tax payers will get a tax cut."

Palin: "I take issue with your plan for redistribution of wealth."

Palin is quite obviously trying to stay detail oriented.

Palin said McCain would offer a $5,000 tax credit to American families to pay for health care.

Biden said that McCain would pay for his tax credit by taxing small businesses. "That is money that would go straight into the insurance companies," he said.

Biden called McCain's plan the "Ultimate Bridge to Nowhere."

Commentary before the debate:

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is in the political fight of her life. It has been a bad week for Palin. She has had disastrous interviews with Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric and there is, of course, Tina Fey's brutally accurate impersonation on Saturday Night Live.

Her primary objective tonight is to avoid being her developing stereotype. She needs to be strictly issue oriented and fluent in McCain's economic proposals. The problem with the interviews was not that she made verbal stumbles, it was that she reverted to generalities and talking points. Speaking in platitudes may excite your base, but will turn off independents looking to be convinced.

Sen. Joe Biden will be the same Biden we saw in multiple primary debates. He will be calm, aggressive and will have a masterful command of the issues. His job will be to show respect for Palin and to not talk down to her. He cannot make the mistake that George H.W. Bush did in 1988 when he offered to "help" Vice Presidential Candidate Geraldine Ferraro understand foreign policy.

Palin cannot afford any more missteps. If she appears incompetent in front of millions of viewers, her national political career might be over.

With that said, she was elected Governor of Alaska for a reason. She showed a lot of composure and command at the convention. I predict that she will do much better than everyone expects. If she can walk away without making any serious missteps, against the most experienced person in the U.S. Senate, she will have scored a victory. -- David Larter

I have been watching pundits on MSNBC for the three hours leading up to this debate. There is little talk about what viewers should expect from Sen. Joe Biden, aside from how he needs to make sure not to talk down to his opponent. Most of the discussion is about Gov. Sarah Palin. The question is whether she will present herself as the candidate we saw during the Republican Convention, or the one we've been seeing in TV interviews during the past two weeks.

What struck me is that the voters seem to be divided about Palin's interviews. The media presents her as a candidate who cannot answer basic interview questions, but conservative voters think that members of the media are being unfair and disrespectful to her. Most students on campus have an unfavorable opinion of Palin, but our campus is not representative of the rest of the country. -- Kimberly Leonard

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Hi everyone. I'm Kimberly Leonard, the online managing editor of The Collegian. Along with David Larter, the online community reporter, I am covering the Vice Presidential Debates screening in the Whitehurst Living Room here on campus. About 120 students are attending.

The Collegian polled 345 students last week and found that the majority of students polled had "no opinion" of Sen. Joe Biden, and the majority of those polled had a "very unfavorable opinion" of Gov. Sarah Palin.

About 50 percent of 224 students polled this week said they would vote for Barack Obama, and about 30 percent said they would vote for John McCain.

To contact staff writer Kimberly Leonard and David Larter at kimberly.leonard@richmond.edu and david.larter@richmond.edu