Reporters were ready to break out their violins and shed a tear when Robert Gibbs launched into his assessment of Barack Obama's debating skills.

"I think you come away from watching Senator Obama understanding that this isn't his strong suit," Mr. Gibbs, Obama's communications director, told a Monitor breakfast Thursday. "Sometimes it takes 60 seconds for him to clear his throat."

Now that agreement has been reached in principle on a financial bailout package on Capitol Hill, it is looking increasingly likely that the first presidential debate of the 2008 general election will go ahead after all on Friday night in Oxford, Miss.

Republican John McCain had proposed postponing the debate until an accord had been reached.

But even before word of an agreement, aides to both candidates were busy setting expectations for debate performance - a time-honored tradition in the game of politics.

On Wednesday, Mike DuHaime, a top aide to Senator McCain, praised Obama's debating prowess at a Monitor luncheon. "We know Senator Obama is a phenomenal debater," he said, as reporters chuckled. He is "one of the most gifted orators that we've seen."

On Thursday, one could not be blamed for thinking Gibbs was describing a completely different person when he talked about Obama's debate habits: "He tends to get a question, describe the problem, tell a story, give some solutions, and you pray to God that that isn't 45 seconds longer than you've been allotted to speak."

"Senator McCain goes into this with a decided advantage, having staked his candidacy on 26 years of Washington experience and foreign policy experience," Gibbs said. "Senator McCain has spent some portion of this campaign mocking us for our lack of knowledge on foreign policy. I would expect that somebody who does that kind of stuff is exceedingly confident going into a debate where the issue terrain is what he's mocked his opponent on."

Even before word emerged Thursday afternoon that a financial bailout agreement was on its way, Gibbs expressed confidence that McCain would take part in the debate.

"I think he will be there," Gibbs said. "I think he will decide that a president is capable of doing more than one thing at a time."

And if McCain really opts out of the debate in the name of putting "country first" at a time of financial crisis, as he suggested, Obama is willing to stand alone on stage at the University of Mississippi.

"He's practicing his part in this, so we're prepared to take questions from Jim Lehrer with or without John McCain," said Mr. Gibbs.

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