New own goal for Obama as running mate Joe Biden admits: 'Hillary might have been a better pick than me'

Barack Obama's White House campaign was in crisis last night after his running mate Joe Biden admitted Hillary Clinton might have been a better Democrat choice for vice president.

The extraordinary confession, effectively challenging Mr Obama's decision to snub the former first lady, was the campaign's second major gaffe in just 24 hours.

It came as the Illinois senator defended himself against accusations that he was referring to Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin when he used the phrase: 'You can put lipstick on a pig. It's still a pig.'

Mr Biden's comments also underlined Democratic fears that women voters are turning in droves to John McCain since he plucked the Alaskan governor from relative obscurity.

'Make no mistake about this, Hillary Clinton is as qualified or more qualified than I am to be vice president of the United States,' Mr Biden said.

The 65-year-old Delaware senator told supporters in Nashua, New Hampshire: 'She might have been a better pick than me. She's first rate.'

A spokesman for Mr McCain immediately said Mr Biden's comments suggested 47-year-old Mr Obama had botched his 'most important decision of this election'.

The double blow to the Democrats, already reeling from 'the Palin effect' in the polls, has led to a series of top level meetings aimed at getting the once buoyant campaign back on track.

Mr Obama has even enlisted former president Bill Clinton's help to persuade his 60-year-old wife to do more to counteract Mrs Palin, who was again dominating the news last night with her first television interview.

Joe Biden and Barack Obama pictured ordering ice cream last month. Mr Obama is fighting off Republican criticism after Mr Biden's admission

Pundits claim Mrs Clinton's blank refusal to be an 'attack dog' and target 44-year-old Mrs Palin has left Mr Obama vulnerable.

Although she has been in Florida this week, Mrs Clinton has left Mr Obama alone to defend himself in the pig in lipstick row.

Obama's advisors are also worried he is being drawn away from the issues and into personality tussles with Mrs Palin, in the same way 2004 Democrat candidate John Kerry was successfully sidetracked by George Bush's number two, Dick Cheney.

Adding to the Democrat nominee's troubles was the announcement yesterday that one of Mrs Clinton's top former fund-raisers, Susie Tompkins Buell, is now leading a group that will fight media sexism against Mrs Palin.

Julia Piscitelli, of the American University's Women and Politics Institute, told CBS television: 'I don't think Palin would be seeing these kinds of gains if Hillary was on the ticket.'

Although both sides called a truce yesterday to mark the seventh anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks, it is likely to be a short respite.

Sticking to their recent theme that Mrs Palin is being unfairly attacked by her Democrat opponents, the Republicans are set to issue an advert showing wolves leaping out of the wilderness to attack the Alaskan governor.

'As Obama drops in the polls, he'll try to destroy her,' says a narrator.

Mr Obama, meanwhile, denied claims that his campaign has sent 30 lawyers and investigators to Alaska to dig up dirt on the mother-of-five.