Biden to visit here Sunday

The Daily Inter Lake and The Associated Press

Democratic vice presidential candidate U.S. Sen. Joe Biden is scheduled to come to Kalispell on Sunday afternoon.

However, a time and a place had not been nailed down by Thursday for the event billed as a discussion with local voters.

This likely will be an admission-by-ticket event, with the ticketing details still to be hashed out, said Caleb Weaver, press secretary for the Obama-Biden campaign in Montana.

"This is to show how committed the Obama-Biden campaign is to winning Montana," Weaver said Thursday.

Barack Obama has staked out Montana as a battleground state, promising to overturn years of GOP dominance in presidential elections. His campaign has opened offices around the state, hired full-time staff and aired radio and TV ads.

Obama has visited the state five times, including a stop last week in Billings.

Sunday's event in Kalispell could be similar to a Thursday forum that Biden held in Virginia Beach.

The Associated Press reported that Biden said he will vigorously challenge his Republican counterpart, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, on the issues but will refrain from personal attacks.

Biden made the remarks Thursday in response to a question from a woman who attended his forum on national security and veterans issues in military-heavy Virginia Beach. The questioner said she realized it's tricky for a male candidate to debate a woman but implored Biden to "please promise me you'll go after her the same way…."

The rest of the question was drowned out by applause and cheers.

"The way I was raised is: I never, ever, ever attack the other person," Biden said, adding that probably was not what many his fellow Democrats want to hear. "I will take issue with her as strongly as I can."

Biden said that has been his approach through 13 presidential debates.

"I'm not good at the one-line zingers. That's not my deal," Biden said.

Palin's speech at the Republican National Convention was packed with zingers, and Biden said he was impressed with the way she delivered it.

"I think she's going to be an incredibly competent debater," he said.

However, he said he noticed Palin never mentioned health care, education or the middle class.

He said in response to another question that the middle class would be better off economically under Democrat Barack Obama than Republican John McCain.

"Ninety-five percent of American households' taxes will go down," he said. "If you're making $250,000 a year - and I hope you are - we don't have a tax cut for you."

At a town-hall forum later in Manassas, Va., Jennifer Halpin of Leesburg, Va., told the Associated Press, "I'm really tired of Republican pandering to women voters. … I think it's preposterous for Republicans to think that just because they add any woman to the ticket, that we're going to be dumb enough to turn into Stepford wives" and vote for the GOP ticket.

Biden said in response: "Spoken like my wife, daughter and sister."

Biden spoke to more than 150 people at that town-hall meeting, addressing economic issues. He complimented Palin - though he mistakenly referred to her as Alaska's lieutenant governor - for poise and impressively delivering her speech Wednesday night at the Republican convention, but said she and other GOP speakers failed to address Americans' concerns about the faltering economy.

"They can't explain eight years of economic decline hitting the middle class like a gut punch," Biden said.

Biden had said earlier that he had never known anyone more courageous than McCain, his longtime Senate colleague, but said Obama already has demonstrated better judgment on military and foreign policy matters.

It's a claim Biden has been making to counter Republican criticism about Obama's lack of experience.

"Experience only matters if you couple it with judgment," Biden said.