As is The Ticket's custom, a post listing the entire roster of appearances on this Sunday's interview programs will pop up Saturday at noon PDT (3 p.m. EDT).

But here's an advance heads up, in part because of who WON'T be found on any of the chat shows.

Three of the four now-official candidates on the major-party presidential tickets are scheduled to sit down for questions: Democrat Barack Obama on ABC's "This Week," his running mate, Joe Biden, on NBC's "Meet the Press" and Republican John McCain on CBS' "Face the Nation."

Absent from this list, of course, is the GOP's star of the moment, the not-so-long-ago obscure governor of Alaska who is McCain's running mate, Sarah Palin.

Since she was thrust onto the national stage a week ago, her appearances on it have been tightly regulated by the McCain campaign: a few side-by-side campaign stops with him and, of course, her big speech to the GOP's convention Wednesday night.

Today, top McCain aide Rick Davis indicated the campaign isn't in any hurry to slot Palin for a Sunday show appearance -- and will do so only if he and other strategists determine it serves the ticket's purposes, not because some may view it as a required initiation for a major political player.

Appearing on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" show, Davis said, "I'd never commit to anything in the future. ... Our strategy is in our hands, not the media's. We're going to do what's in our best interests to try to win the election. If we think going on TV news shows are [sic] in our best interests, we'll do it. If we don't, we won't."

Palin still will be busy this weekend. She'll campaign Saturday with McCain in two key states -- Colorado and New Mexico -- and she'll deliver his campaign's weekly radio address. That's one of those trappings of the presidency McCain has borrowed (notwithstanding the barbs his forces like to sling at Obama along these lines).

-- Don Frederick

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