Barack Obama and John McCain were able to embark yesterday on a frantic final month of the presidential race after their accident-prone running-mates survived a 90-minute debate without crashing.

The heaviest sighs of relief were on the Republican side, where aides believe that Sarah Palin recovered some lustre lost on Thursday night in St Louis after a fortnight when her fumbled TV interviews had become the object of international ridicule.

Democrats also voiced satisfaction that Joe Biden, who has his own deserved reputation for gaffe-making, successfully navigated a potential minefield in which he might easily have resorted to condescension or appeared to bully the Republican’s first woman vice-presidential nominee.

According to preliminary data, Thursday’s sparring session had the highest ratings of any US vice-presidential debate - 45 per cent of households, compared to 33 per cent for last week’s presidential debate.

Snap polls suggested that Mr Biden had won the debate, while Mrs Palin exceeded some very low expectations after spending much of the evening punctuating answers with winks, wiggled eyebrows and a sprinkle of the folksy wisdom of a self-declared “Washington outsider”. She offered a “big shout out to third graders” from her brother’s school and promised them they would get “extra credits” for watching her.

Her sentences were littered with the lexicon of the American frontier. “Darn right it was the predator lenders,” Mrs Palin said in response to questions about who was responsible for the financial crisis. She later added, for good measure, “doggone it”.

At one stage, she declared: “I may not answer the questions the way you or the moderator want.”

Often she did not even try. Instead, she pivoted into homespun anecdotes designed to connect with voters and perhaps conceal her lack of knowledge. Asked about the bailout package, she said: “Go to a kids’ soccer game on Saturday and turn to any parent there 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.”

There was only one notable mistake, when she referred to General David McKiernan of the Army, the top commander in Afghanistan, as “General McClellan” – a commander in the American Civil War. But Mrs Palin was ready for criticism of her inexperience. “How long have I been at this?” she asked. “Like five weeks.”

Mr Biden was back home in Delaware yesterday, speaking at the military deployment ceremony for his son who, like Mrs Palin’s eldest, is heading to Iraq. On Thursday night, the six-term Senator was careful that he did not talk down to Mrs Palin, who has only two years of state-wide office. His attacks were aimed at Mr McCain, who was “dead wrong” on Iraq and “out of touch” on the economy. And he had his own moment of emotion, choking up when describing the death of his wife and daughter in car crash in 1972 and how he had to raise his two young sons alone.

Mrs Palin accused Mr Biden of “waving the white flag” in Iraq and said that the Democratic ticket spent too much time looking back.

Mr McCain’s spokesman, Tucker Bounds, said he hoped that the debate and the bailout’s approval would allow the campaign to get back to basics, serving “as a launch pad off what has been a challenging week for us”.

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