Advice

Hendrik Hertzberg gives some advice to Joe Biden (via the New Yorker's "Campaign Trial" podcast):

Biden has a particular problem. He has the social awkwardness with women of a happily-married man. I mean, he's not really practiced at how to relate to a woman he doesn't really know very well. There is a danger he'll make some inappropriate joke or [engage in] a piece of awkward flirtatiousness that will blow up in his face.

[So, he should] shut up. Let her do all the talking. If you must say something, say something very short and sweet and then say, "And I'd be interested to hear what Governor Palin has to say about this." [Order scrambled for coherence.]

A former presidential speechwriter, he knows of what he speaks.