Pakistan News Story

02 December 2008 21:19 BST

Palin and Biden miss knockout blow in key debate

Vice presidential candidates Joe Biden and Sarah Palin have failed to land a knockout blow during their only head-to-head debate in the race for the White House.

Delaware senator Mr Biden stuck to the Barack Obama campaign message of hanging George Bush's record around Republican nominee John McCain's neck.

Alaska governor Mrs Palin made very few mistakes in a debate that was being billed as a true test of her credentials to be a heartbeat away from the presidency.

The debate, at Washington University in St Louis, Missouri, had been portrayed as the most eagerly-anticipated vice presidential debate of all time.

As the debate began and the candidates took to the stage, Mrs Palin addressed her opponent with the words: "Nice to meet you, can I call you Joe?"

Mr Biden, 65, successfully avoided appearing patronising or sexist over his perceived superiority on foreign policy by focusing his attention on dispelling Arizona senator Mr McCain's maverick Republican status.

Mrs Palin, 44, did exactly the opposite; championing both her and Mr McCain as agents for change in Washington.

The debate had threatened to be overshadowed by the Bush administration's $700 billion bailout bill, which is due to be put to the House of Representatives on Friday for a second time, and the first question was on the rescue package.

"The economic policies of the last eight years are the worst we've ever had," Mr Biden said.

"We're going to fundamentally change the focus of economic policy, we're going to focus on the middle class. Because when the middle class prospers the whole of America does too."

Mrs Palin, who had greeted her opponent with the words "Nice to meet you, can I call you Joe?" and mentioned parents at soccer games in the first line of her opening response, said Americans were full of "fear" over the economy.

"The federal government has not provided the oversight we need. John McCain has been the one representing reform," she claimed.

In what would become a recurring theme of the 90-minute debate, Mrs Palin answered a question on the role of the VP by praising America's workforce, while a query from the moderator, PBS anchor Gwen Ifill, on the subprime crisis was fielded with a quip on a commitment to help "Joe Six Pack and Hockey Moms across the nation".

On taxes, Mr Biden promised that no one earning under $250,000 would see their taxes raised by a single penny, but Mrs Palin said the US had Mr McCain to thank for putting politics aside and bringing people to the table on the country's economic problems.

Mrs Palin also accused the Democrats of promulgating a policy of a "white flag of surrender" in Iraq after Mr Biden said Mr McCain's stance on the war was outdated.

"We will know we are done when commanders on the ground tell us we have won," Mrs Palin said.

"John is dead wrong," Mr Biden countered. "I love him, but he is dead wrong."

Neither candidate could separate a nuclear-armed Iran or an increasingly-unstable Pakistan in terms of danger to the US, but Mr Biden criticised the Republican nominee for identifying Iraq as the centre of the war on terror and not the Afghanistan/Pakistan border.

Mrs Palin explicitly ruled out talks with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad without pre-conditions, but Mr Biden again said Mr McCain's stance was becoming isolated, with even the Bush administration thawing relations with Tehran.

He cited the "abject failure" of the Bush administration to achieve lasting peace in the Middle East and criticised a plan backed by Mr McCain to hold elections in the West Bank, a move Mr Biden said legitimised Hamas.

With neither candidate scoring a knockout blow, or making a serious error, attention now turns to the second of three presidential debates between Mr Obama and Mr McCain in Tennessee on Tuesday.