Steve Schmidt: We scripted Palin's answers for the VP debate

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.”