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The e-mail from Wachovia this week might have been funny for its impeccably bad timing. Had it not been so sad.

"Now there's another great reason to tell someone why you're with Wachovia," the chirpy message began. "For every person you refer who opens a Wachovia Free Checking account, we'll give you both $25."

Wow. Twenty-five bucks! But do tell, what do I do with this windfall? Spend it on a quarter tank of gas, if I can find some? Stock the pantry with a supply of Spam? Sock it away in my 401(k) plan? Or just roll up those dead presidents, set them on fire and light one last cigar before the apocalypse?

It's not funny. It's way past funny. People are stressed out, preoccupied. The news was so bad the other morning that I saw a driver in a Lincoln, no doubt listening to the bailout implode on "Morning Edition," refuse to yield to an ambulance on West Market.

As if to say, "You may be in an ambulance, buddy, but my portfolio is flatlining. We've all got problems."

Which is why vice presidential candidates Sarah Palin and Joe Biden deserve the thanks of a grateful nation when they meet in St. Louis on Thursday for the most anticipated bout since Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier's Thrilla in Manila.

But unlike the Thrilla, we don't need Don King or pay TV. This is a guaranteed gate with monster ratings. And the beauty part is, it's free.

At this hour, Biden seems cast in the favored role of Ali. He floats like a butterfly, he stings like a bee, but he has an Achilles heel - or mouth - that threatens to be his undoing. The Democrat cannot stop talking. Ever.

Palin, in the underdog Frazier role, enters the ring battered and bruised by a tsunami of insults slung her way, hungry for vindication.

Part one of last week's Couric interview was so bad Republicans held their breath; part two so devastating that Palin body double Tina Fey didn't write jokes off of it, she more or less read the transcript on "Saturday Night Live."

But don't count Palin out yet. She has been sequestered for a grim and relentless pre-bout regimen, briefed by Henry Kissinger and Condoleezza Rice, and no doubt served raw eggs for breakfast, Rocky Balboa-style.

This week, Palin previewed an uppercut. Asked about meeting her opponent, the Alaska governor, 44, called the silver-haired 65-year-old Delaware senator "a great debater," and one she has been hearing about "since I was in, like, second grade."

Age before beauty! A TKO!

Meanwhile Biden, unlike Ali, has left the escalating pre-fight rhetoric to his handlers, who are practicing reverse psychology. Rather than have Palin beat the spread because of low audience expectations, the Democrats have suddenly been building her up as a fearsome opponent, an Amazon of a debater, a veritable mankiller.

"She's very skilled, and she'll be well-prepared," Obama strategist David Axelrod told CNN.

Said Biden flack David Wade: "He's going in here to debate a leviathan of forensics, who has debated five times, and she's undefeated."

A "leviathan of forensics?"

Even Muhammad Ali couldn't have come up with that line. He just called Joe Frazier a gorilla. All of which suggests this will be nothing less than a chilla, a killa, a quantum equation, a QE in St. Louis.

For a little while, we'll forget all about our problems. Who says politicians are useless?

Contact Lorraine Ahearn at 373-7334 or lorraine.ahearn@news-record.com