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Biden says Palin hasn't aired her stance on issues

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

September 8, 2008

WASHINGTON - Democrat Joe Biden says he's debated "an awful lot of tough, smart women" throughout his career and that next month's vice-presidential debate with Republican Sarah Palin will be no exception. But he'd like to know where she stands on issues.

"She's a smart, tough politician, so I think she's going to be very formidable," Biden told NBC's "Meet the Press" yesterday.

The Democratic senator from Delaware and the Republican governor of Alaska are scheduled to debate Oct. 2 at Washington University in St. Louis.

Biden, serving his sixth term in Congress, said "there's a lot of very tough, smart women in the United States Senate I debate every day." So going up against the first-term governor, he said: "It's not new."

Meanwhile, today, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama's former rival, will campaign in Florida.

When Biden was asked whether he'd debate Palin differently than he would Republicans Mitt Romney or Tom Ridge, two former governors who figured into speculation about John McCain's running mate, he said the only difference is that he knows their positions on issues.

"I have no idea what her policies are. I assume they're the same as John's. I just don't know," he said of Palin.

Biden said she delivered a great speech to the Republican National Convention last week in St. Paul, Minn., but "her silence on the issues was deafening.

"She didn't mention a word about health care, a word about the environment, a word about the middle class. ... so I don't know where she is on those things."

In an interview broadcast Sunday on ABC's "This Week," Obama said that he was probably too flip when he said it was "above my pay grade" to answer a question about when is a baby entitled to human rights.

Asked if the answer was too flip, Obama said: "Probably. ... What I intended to say is that, as a Christian, I have a lot of humility about understanding when does the soul enter into ... It's a pretty tough question. And so, all I meant to communicate was that I don't presume to be able to answer these kinds of theological questions."