Vice Presidential Debate: Memorable Moments from Previous VP Debates (Video)

Vice President Joe Biden and Congressman Paul Ryan meet in at Centre College in Danville, Ky, for the first and only vice-presidential debate.

Biden is known for his frequent gaffes, and Ryan is a bombastic and ideological speaker. While the campaigns are hoping the two candidates do their party proud, a snappy zinger or hilarious goof are possible, particularly with these two.

Here are the best such moments from previous vice-presidential debates.

In 2008, Joe Biden faced off against Sarah Palin, then governor of Alaska. Biden was cautioned to hold back, so he didn't appear to be sexist, or dismissive of Palin, whom the public was just getting to know.

Biden behaved, but he did almost lose control once, though it wasn't directed at Palin. When talking about the challenges faced by middle-class families, he recounted his own difficulties and started tearing up. Biden's first wife and infant daughter were killed in a car accident just weeks after he was first elected to the Senate.

In 1992, James Stockdale stumbled through a three-way debate with Vice-President Dan Quayle and then-Senator Al Gore. Stockdale was Reform Party candidate Ross Perot's running mate. Early in the night, he joked, "Who am I? Why am I here?"

At the time the line got laughter, but when he later missed a question because he didn't have his "hearing aid turned on," viewers started to wonder if he wasn't being serious.

Of course, the most famous vice-presidential debate moment happened in 1988, during Dan Quayle's previous appearance on the stage.

The young senator, hoping to burnish his credentials and allay fears about his inexperience, compared himself to John F. Kennedy, known to friends as Jack.

Quayle's opponent, Lloyd Bentsen shot back, ""Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy."

Quayle never recovered in that debate, but he and running mate George H. W. Bush went on to win the election.

It is an instructive moment for Paul Ryan this year. Ryan has a similar amount of experience as Quayle did, and by extension Kennedy, and Ryan has a tendency to be brash and confident in ways that can be off-putting for an audience.

And Biden needn't hold back this time. Ryan is known as a policy wonk, so Biden will hit him hard on policy, and Biden is known as one of the most knowledgeable politicians when it comes to foreign policy.

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