Sarah Palin and Joe Biden met last night in their first and only US vice presidential debate, where both sought to portray their running mate as a change agent best positioned by way of politics and personality to lead the country at a critical time. The candidates traded barbs, albeit mostly politely, on everything from tax cuts to diplomacy to terrorism, highlighting policy differences between the two tickets. Mrs Palin, the Republican governor of Alaska, called Barack Obama's 16-month timeline for withdrawing troops from Iraq a "white flag of surrender" and charged that he had supported the "largest tax increases in history". Mr Biden, a Democratic senator from Delaware, accused John McCain of being a champion not of the middle class but of the wealthy, and said that he had effectively fueled the financial crisis by voting repeatedly for more market deregulation. But just as telling, perhaps, as the policy differences were the stylistic ones between a 65-year-old man who has served in Washington for 35 years and a 44-year-old self-described "hockey mom" who has been on the national political scene for five weeks. Mrs Palin tried to do what has been her strength on the campaign trail: be folksy. She referred to "Joe Six Pack", winked at the camera and said things like "darn right we need tax relief". At one point, responding to a question about the subprime mortgage crisis, she said she might not answer questions the way Mr Biden or the moderator, PBS' Gwen Ifill, wanted, but that she was "going to talk straight to the American people". As expected, Mr Biden came across as knowledgeable, particularly on foreign policy, and, at least by traditional standards, seemed more polished. Choosing for the most part not to engage Mrs Palin directly but rather focus on her running mate, he answered questions firmly but not in an aggressive manner, which was a concern of some Democrats. Commentators described his performance as "self-disciplined", noting that he had for the most part avoided being long-winded and seeming like he believes he knows everything. Thursday night's 90-minute debate at Washington University in St Louis was the only one scheduled for the vice presidential nominees. The presidential candidates will face each other twice more, the next time on Tuesday in Nashville, Tennessee. Mr Biden hammered away at Mr McCain using the same tactic Mr Obama did a week ago in the first presidential debate, tying the Arizona Republican to the Bush administration of the last eight years. He called the administration's Middle East policy an "abject failure" and spoke often of the middle class, referring to his own working-class roots. "We have a different value set," Mr Biden told Mrs Palin. For her part, Mrs Palin repeatedly used the word "maverick" to describe herself and Mr McCain, and invoked populist talking points she has used often on the stump: putting government "back on the side of the people" and ridding Wall Street of corruption. The stakes were high for both candidates going in to the debate. But Mrs Palin was under a particularly warm spotlight, after her recent performance in a CBS Evening News interview with Katie Couric in which she seemed, at times, uncomfortable and ill-informed on a range of issues. While she performed better last night than in that interview, there were moments when she stumbled. She mistakenly referred to the top commander in Afghanistan, Gen David D McKiernan, as "General McCellan" and, in talking about the economic crisis, inadvertently mixed up Wall Street and Main Street. "It is a crisis, it's a toxic mess, really, on Main Street that's affecting Wall Street," she said. At times, Mrs Palin did not answer Mrs Ifill's questions directly, seeming to return to more familiar topics such as energy independence and tax cuts even when the moderator had asked about something else. But with expectations set so low, Mrs Palin was widely seen, in post-debate commentary, as having at least met them - and, according to some, surpassed them. The McCain camp immediately claimed all-out victory. "Tonight, Governor Palin proved beyond any doubt that she is ready to lead as Vice President of the United States," the campaign's communications director, Jill Hazelbaker, said in a statement. "She won this debate, putting Joe Biden on defence on energy, foreign policy, taxes and the definition of change." In a fundraising appeal sent to supporters only a few hours after the debate ended, Mr Biden weighed in on the what happened there himself. "If you saw tonight's debate, you saw Governor Sarah Palin give a spirited defense of the same disastrous policies that have failed us for the past eight years," he wrote. "She couldn't identify a single area where she or John McCain would change George W Bush's economic or foreign policy positions. "Let's be clear: Governor Palin and Senator McCain are offering nothing but more of the same failed Bush policies at home and abroad, trying to disguise them in the rhetoric of change. Americans need real solutions and real change." eniedowski@thenational.ae
