Palin, 44, and Biden, 65, faced off in St. Louis, Missouri, at a critical moment for John McCain's Republican White House campaign, as Democrat Barack Obama opened up a lead in all fronts ahead of election day on November 4.
A CBS poll gave Biden a 46 per cent to 21 per cent victory, while CNN scored it at 51-36.
Despite the polling it was clear that Palin did much better than expected after being hammered in the media for the past three weeks after a series of faltering performances in TV interviews.
The exchanges with Biden were characterized by the Alaskan Governor often reverting to familiar ground - particularly on energy policy - as well as using campaign talking points when asked questions she was unfamiliar with, reciting soundbites in a breezy and folksy way.
What both the Obama and McCain camps will be wondering is Palin’s performance has changed any minds.
It is likely that her support base will be happy with her performance but independent voters have been leaving the McCain-Palin ticket in droves in the past two weeks, according to opinion polls.
Palin, posing as a Washington outsider, largely ignored the debate questions, and aimed planned attacks in a folksy manner against Obama, warning his foreign policy was “dangerous.”
She aimed to make up for her lack of experience on key national and international issues, by trying to forge a connection with middle-class and female voters who are key to the election outcome.
Framing herself as a typical middle-class person who goes to kids’ soccer games, showcasing her “hockey mom” persona, she painted herself as a reformer as a small town mayor and governor and an expert on energy.
“I may not answer the question the way you want to hear, but I'll talk straight to the American people and let them know my track record also,” she said.
Biden, a political veteran with 35 years of experience, providing detailed policy answers, trying to show a range of expertise across the economy, foreign policy and national security.
He was careful not to attack Palin or her credentials directly, seeking to avoid being branded as sexist or a bully - seeking to label McCain as a clone of unpopular President George W. Bush.
“Nice to meet you, can I call you Joe?” Palin said, in a comment picked up by microphones as she walked on stage and shook hands with her adversary, as she faced mounting questions about her qualifications for the job.
Delaware Senator Biden returned the compliment as he answered his first question about the $US 700 billion Wall Street bailout up for a vote in the House of Representatives on Friday.
“Governor, it's a pleasure to meet you,” Biden said.
The two rivals clashed on the financial crisis, and its debilitating impact on the US middle classes.
Palin warned Democrats would embrace wealth distribution and high tax policies that she said would limit growth. Biden argued that eight years of Republican policies were to blame for the economy's nightmare.
“It was two Mondays ago that John McCain said at nine in the morning that fundamentals of the economy were strong,” Biden said.
“Later that day John McCain said we had an economic crisis -- that doesn't make John McCain a bad guy but it does point out he's out of touch,” he said.
Palin chose not to parry a Biden claim that McCain had argued against greater regulation on Wall Street, and contributed to the debt-laden crisis threatening the US economy.
Instead, she argued that Obama had voted in the Senate to raise taxes 94 times, a claim that has been questioned by newspaper reports and independent fact check operations.
She also painted McCain as a “maverick” immune from the kind of Washington logjam politics she framed his long-time Senate colleague Biden as representing.
While Palin was strongest on domestic policy, the gap in experience and knowledge between the rivals became most obvious when the debate turned to national security, and the Bush administration's foreign policy legacy.
She called the commander of the NATO-led security assistance force in Afghanistan “McClellan” instead of his name General David McKiernan, and her answers were often vague and lacked detail.
Biden branded McCain as a clone of Bush on foreign policy and said he would extend the same policies which Democrats say have failed.
“I haven't heard how his policy will be different on Iran than George W. Bush's.
“I haven't heard how his policy will be different on Israel than George Bush's.
“I haven't heard how his policy on Afghanistan will be different than George Bush's, I haven't heard how his policy in Pakistan will be different than George Bush's.”
But Palin rebuked Biden for dwelling on the past and not the future.
“There is a time, too, when Americans say enough is enough with your ticket on constantly looking backwards and pointing fingers and doing the blame game,” she said.
Palin wowed the Republican convention in early September with her speech, and the devout Christian, pro-life, moose-hunting mother-of-five reenergized the party's conservative base reluctant to embrace McCain.
But her star has been fading amid a string of controversies and her stumbling performances in the few media interviews she has granted.
Photo: Joe Biden and Sarah Palin face off for the vice-presidential debate at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri
Tags: Biden, Palin, polls, Presidential Elections, source: The Australian, Ya Libnan
