Video comment: Gerard Baker | Who said what | Comment Central: why Palin lost | Sketch: Biden's hairdo bristled with contempt Picture gallery | Moose-hunting Palin style

Sarah Palin last night winked into the camera, confidently sprinkled around the folksy wisdom of a self-declared "Washington outsider", and just about held her own in an eagerly-anticipated debate against Joe Biden.

The Republican vice-presidential nominee declared her intentions from the outset, greeting her Democratic rival by saying: "Hi, nice to meet you, can I call you Joe?" Dressed in black, Mrs Palin went on to blithely declare "I may not answer the questions the way you or the moderator want to hear."

Often she did not even try. Instead, she pivoted out of difficult issues into home-spun anecdotes designed to connect with voters and, perhaps, conceal her lack of detailed knowledge. Asked about the economy, she replied: "Go to a kids' soccer game on Saturday and turn to any parent there on the sideline and ask them, 'How are you feeling about the economy? And I'll betcha you're going to hear some fear in that parent's voice’."

The Governor of Alaska, whose recent performances in TV interviews have become the object of public ridicule, offered a "big shout out to third graders" watching from her brother's school and promised them they would get "extra credits".

Her sentences were sprinkled with the lexicon of the American frontier. “Darn right it was the predator lenders,” Mrs Palin said in response to about who was responsible to for the current crisis. "Let’s commit ourselves, just everyday American people — Joe Six-Pack, hockey moms across the nation — I think we need to band together and say, never again.” She later added, for good measure, "doggone it".

She made one noticeable mistake, referring to General David McKiernan of the Army, the top commander in Afghanistan, as “General McClellan.”

But Mrs Palin was also ready for her critics. “How long have I been at this? Like five weeks,” Mrs Palin said in discussing the economic crisis. “So there hasn’t been a whole lot I have promised, except to do what is right for the American people, put government back on the side of the American people, stop the greed and corruption on Wall Street."

Mr Biden, a six-term Senator and experienced debater who has spent 34 more years than his rival on the national stage, was careful to not appear condescending or aggressive. When he attacked, his aimed high towards the Republican presidential nominee rather than at his female running mate.

“Until two weeks ago John McCain said at 9 in the morning that the fundamentals of the economy were strong,” Mr Biden said. “Two weeks before that, he said we’ve made great economic progress under George Bush’s policies. Nine o’clock, the economy was strong; 11 that same day, two Mondays ago, John McCain said that we have an economic crisis. That doesn’t make John McCain a bad guy, but it does point out he’s out of touch."

But, initially at least, he too often retreated back to his record of Senate votes to explain policy positions.

"I have almost as many friends on the Republican side of the aisle as on the Democratic side of the aisle," he said, underlining his bi-partisan credentials.

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