Sarah Palin put Katie Couric behind her with Thursday’s debate. The deer-in-the-headlights look and humiliating loss for words evident in recent interviews were nowhere to be seen.
Instead, a double-barreled recitation of facts, leavened with homey “Joe six-pack” and “hockey mom” vernacular, showed her as well-prepared. Ducking questions and sticking to her talking points — blasting “East Coast politicians” and bringing Wasilla values to Washington — she escaped unscathed.
Predictions of a major gaffe or wipe out were laid to rest.
The stark differences between parties and personalities were clearly on display. Not just experienced against inexperienced, but senatorial versus rural.
The corny slang seemed calculated by the end of the 90 minutes. “Say it ain’t so, Joe,” “doggone it,” “heckuva,” “darndest” (wink), “shout out to third-graders,” “maverick,” “maverick,” “maverick . . .”
Dropping “g’s” like hot coals, Palin laid out her debate strategy in the first 15 minutes: “I may not answer the questions that either the moderator or you want to hear, but I’m going to talk straight to the American people,” she announced directly to the camera.
Joe Biden kept his sights trained on John McCain, declining to engage his opponent on a more personal level. As Biden hammered away at McCain, he made Palin a nonissue.
Palin’s couple of slips were not serious enough to make it to “Saturday Night Live.” The economic crisis is “a toxic mess on Main Street that’s affecting Wall Street,” she said. She referred to her opponent as “Senator O’Biden.”
Biden offered ideas for reform, such as adjusting the principal on mortgages. He actually answered questions and avoided popping off. Palin skipped a retort on the economy to return to the better-rehearsed subject of energy independence, and avoided moderator Gwen Ifill’s probe about her personal Achilles’ heel to sing McCain’s praises.
PBS’s Ifill was even-handed, plain-spoken and efficient. Her performance defused any controversy about her impartiality that followed news of her forthcoming book featuring Barack Obama. (If Palin had stumbled, Ifill’s allegiance would have made a convenient scapegoat.)
Palin took the side of the “average, everyday American” and, with rhetorical flourishes, painted herself as one. Biden took the side of progress, careful to link McCain and Dick Cheney, McCain and George Bush.
The headline, Couric rightly concluded on CBS immediately afterward, is that Palin did not embarrass herself.
Ultimately, Geraldine Ferraro, who in 1984 was the first female U.S. vice presidential candidate, reminded NBC viewers that vice presidential candidates are unimportant in the long run.
Joanne Ostrow: 303-954-1830 or jostrow@denverpost.com
