The strategist behind John McCain's presidential campaign says Sarah Palin had to be coached so thoroughly before her TV debate her answers were almost 'scripted'.
In an exclusive interview with Sky News, Steve Schmidt, nicknamed The Bullet, says her preparations were going so badly in the days leading up to the debate with the vastly more experienced Joe Biden, the campaign was facing an "emergency" and a "crisis".
He told her: "These are the questions. Here's what he's going to say. Here's what your most effective response is. That we want to be able to come out of this debate saying you were on offence."
"If you hear 'A', you go ahead and say 'B', and so to that degree it was somewhat scripted," he admitted.
"The questions that we mocked and drilled in the practice debates were within a degree or two of the questions that (moderator) Gwen Ifell asked during the debate.
We had predicted all but one of them and that was a question on nuclear non-proliferation, if I recall. That came out of left-field."
The Bullet, who helped convince John McCain to pick Palin as his vice-presidential candidate, has fallen out with the former Alaskan governor since the campaign. In her book Going Rogue, Ms Palin accused McCain's team of being too controlling.
But Mr Schmidt, widely regarded as one of America's toughest and shrewdest political strategists, wouldn't be drawn further into a slanging match.
"The campaign was a long time ago, so I don't have anything more to add to it on a personal level other than to say that there was a good outcome to that debate," he said.
He gave Sky News his advice to the three UK leadership candidates as they prepare for their third and last debate, arguing that debates are easier to lose than they are to win, and that there are no bad questions, just bad answers.
"All three candidates have very different strategic equities in the debate. Nick Clegg comes in to this debate with significant momentum, as a newly significant player in the shaping of the election," he said.
With opinions about the candidates and their policies starting to solidify in the electorate, the work of each campaign in 'spinning' the perception of who was most plausible in the debate will be critical in the last days of the campaign.
"The aftermath of the debate is very seldom if ever a continuation for an argument about economic policy or social policy or national health policy," he said.
"It's trying to stick a moment into concrete that you can navigate and try to seek political advantage from that moment."
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