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Obama and Romney at last stand face-to-face on Wednesday to duel for the White House/AFP

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Obama, Romney gear up for first debate

On the eve of the debate, the campaigns traded red meat, pouncing on perceived liabilities of the other side in a daily battle to win news cycles.

Several conservative media websites published stories and footage of a speech in 2007, in which a sermonizing Obama – then a senator – praised his controversial former pastor Jeremiah Wright.

The speech, which had been extensively reported before, shows Obama in a more hard-edged mood than he is usually seen, decrying slow federal responses to Los Angeles riots and Hurricane Katrina, which harmed the black community.

“Much of what we saw on our television screens 15 years ago was Los Angeles expressing a lingering, ongoing, pervasive legacy – a tragic legacy out of the tragic history this country has never fully come to terms with,” Obama said.

Democratic aides dismissed the tape as a “lame” attempt to dig up old stories, and it appeared unlikely that the issue of the fiery Wright, whom Obama repudiated in 2008, would emerge as a key campaign issue this year.

Republicans were meanwhile delighted by a verbal slip by Vice President Joe Biden, who said the middle class had been “buried” for the last four years.

Democrats said Biden was talking about how president George W. Bush’s policies continued to hurt the middle class deep into Obama’s term.

Romney’s running mate Paul Ryan issued a scathing response.

“Unemployment has been above eight percent for 43 months. Our economy is limping along right now. Vice President Biden, just today, said that the middle class, over the last four years, has been ‘buried.’ We agree,” he said.

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Debates are often billed as decisive, but they rarely change presidential races.

Some incumbent presidents, however, including Gerald Ford in 1976 and George H. W. Bush in 1992, have stumbled and ended up losing in November, so Obama will have to be on guard despite leading in the polls.

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