Palin's new plan: Go after Biden  —  ST. LOUIS — Sarah Palin plans to go on the attack in tonight's debate, hitting Joe Biden for what she will call his foreign policy blunders and penchant for adopting liberal positions on taxes and other issues, according to campaign officials involved in prepping her for tonight's showdown.

McCain fate hangs on three states  —  ST. LOUIS — Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) now must win Pennsylvania, Wisconsin or Minnesota in order to get enough electoral votes to win the presidency, his campaign says.  —  Those were considered swing states in 2000 and 2004, but George W. Bush lost them both times.

McCain: Life isn't fair  —  Republican John McCain — making the rounds of the morning news shows as polls show him falling behind Democratic rival Barack Obama and his running mate losing the confidence of voters — sounded either bitter or fatalistic, or perhaps was trying some gallows humor.

Plouffe protests  —  David Plouffe spoke to reporters just now, my colleague Victoria McGrane reports, previewing the debate.  —  After repeatedly calling Palin first “an extremely good debater,” then a “great” one, at the end he ramped it up to “Gov. Palin is one of the best debaters in American politics …

McCain's Now Playing Defense; Obama Bracing For Counterattacks  —  The Politico reports this afternoon that the McCain campaign has canceled their television ads and direct mail program in Michigan, and plans instead to fortify McCain's defensive positions in states won by President Bush in 2004.

McCain's ‘Stop Sarah Palin’ strategy working like a charm, polls show  —  Fresh evidence tonight that the brilliant McCain campaign strategy to lock away the political effervescence of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to stoke overconfidence among the nation's Democrats and set the stage …