Cheney and Edwards to meet in debate

On the campaign trail, Vice President Dick Cheney often jabs at Democrat John Edwards for his past as a trial lawyer, blaming his sort for “frivolous lawsuits” that raise health care costs.

In turn, Edwards rails against Cheney’s ties to the company he once headed, accusing the Republican of favouring his “friends” at Halliburton.

After lashing out at each other for months from a distance, the two vice presidential candidates are to meet face to face tonight at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, for their only debate before the November 2 election.

Typically, vice presidential debates are nothing more than campaign side-shows that don’t impact the race much, if at all. But this debate, both Republicans and Democrats say, has taken on a higher level of importance, given the fallout from President George W Bush’s performance – and scowling demeanour – in his first debate with John Kerry last week.

Polls show voters believe Kerry won that debate. Round 2 of Bush-Kerry comes on Friday.

But first, it’s the vice presidential candidates’ turn.

Republicans grousing about Bush’s appearance were hoping that Cheney, with his decades of foreign policy experience, delivers a solid showing to give the party a boost of confidence. At the same time, Democrats who claimed victory from the first presidential debate were banking on Edwards to continue the momentum with a strong performance based on the skills the North Carolina senator learned in the courtroom for more than 20 years.

Some polls put Bush with a slight lead over Kerry, while others show the race dead even.

Because of the stakes, both campaigns expect high viewership, which would be unusual for a vice presidential debate. In 2000, 46.5 million people watched the first presidential debate between Bush and Al Gore, before viewership plummeted to 28.5 million for the vice presidential encounter between Cheney and Sen. Joe Lieberman.

Tonight, Cheney and Edwards are expected to focus on the candidates at the top of each party’s ticket. The debate is to cover both domestic and foreign policy, although advisers to both campaigns concede that Iraq would likely dominate the confrontation.

Cheney was expected to echo his refrain from the campaign trail that Kerry is unfit to lead the war against terror because his positions on national security and foreign policy shift “with the wind”. In his first one-on-one debate, Edwards is to make the case that Bush misled the public about the war on terror and got the nation into “a mess” in Iraq with no plan for peace.

While the focus still would be on Bush and Kerry, Republicans and Democrats alike said they expected that the former careers of Cheney and Edwards, each considered controversial by the opposing party, to be brought up.

Cheney was chief executive at Halliburton, a major government contractor in Iraq, before joining the Republican ticket in 2000. Edwards has used Cheney’s past to paint the White House as cosy with big business.

Before running for the Senate, Edwards was a trial lawyer specialising in personal injury cases in which juries granted his clients multi-million-dollar awards. Cheney often blames trial lawyers for the rising costs of health care.

The debate was being staged in Ohio, considered one of the top prizes in this election. With 20 electoral votes, the state went to Bush by 3.6 percentage points in 2000.

Seeking to project an air of confidence, Edwards arrived in Cleveland a day early and today was holding a town hall style meeting with voters in nearby Parma before the debate. He had scheduled a post-debate rally as well.

Cheney was flying to Cleveland today from his home in Jackson, Wyoming, and also was attending a post-debate rally.