Video: 'C-SPAN: Full Vice Presidential Debate with Gov. Palin and Sen. Biden'

(Thursday, October 2, 2008, 9:00-10:30 p.m. EDT; during the United States presidential election, 2008 campaign) — Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin used a steady grin, folksy manner and carefully scripted talking points to punch politely and persist politically at the vice-presidential debate tonight, turning in a performance that her rival, Democratic VP nominee Joseph R. Biden Jr., sought to undermine with cordially delivered but pointed criticism.

If the issues and positions were familiar to many viewers — on taxes and the economy, energy and oil, same-sex marriage, Iraq and Afghanistan — it was Palin’s debut in a nationally televised debate that made for unusual theater. And Palin, a former small-town mayor and current governor of Alaska, was unlike any other running mate in recent memory, using phrases like “heck of a lot” and “Main Streeters like me” to appeal to working-class and middle-class voters who feel abandoned by Washington.

Biden, a six-term U.S. senator from Delaware who has twice sought the presidency, remained forceful and composed against an opponent who proved difficult to attack, given that she is a newcomer and a woman in an arena long dominated by men.

Focusing his attacks on the Republican presidential nominee, Senator John McCain, Biden only occasionally lost patience with Palin’s debating tactics, as when she used Biden’s words against him.

In the only vice-presidential debate of the campaign, at Washington University in St. Louis, Palin exceeded expectations in this highly anticipated face-off, though those expectations were low after she had stumbled in recent television interviews. She succeeded by not failing in any obvious way. She mostly reverted to and repeated talking points, like referring to McCain as a “maverick” and the Republican ticket as a “team of mavericks,” while not necessarily quelling doubts among voters about her depth of knowledge.

Instead Palin emphasized her down-home qualities and her membership in the middle class, a group that she and Biden sparred over repeatedly during their 90-minute encounter.