The ghosts of Stephen Douglas and Abraham Lincoln slept soundly last night. The vice presidential debate at Washington University did not threaten their immortal legacy of 1858.
On the other hand, Democrat Joe Biden did not stick his foot in his mouth. Republican Sarah Palin did not ramble into incoherence. In the last 150 years, the currency of expectations has been devalued, and the grand issues of state have been reduced to this: Don’t screw up.
By this mean standard, the debate at Washington University here was a success for both Ms. Palin, the neophyte governor of Alaska, and Mr. Biden, the veteran senior senator from Delaware. The fundamental job for vice presidential candidates in a debate is this: Don’t lose the election for their running mates.
At 9:30 last evening, both Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona and Democratic Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois may have breathed a sigh of relief. Mr. McCain’s may have been a tad louder.
Coming off a disastrous set of interviews with Katie Couric of CBS, Ms. Palin faced a bar of expectations set exceedingly low. She easily cleared it, aiming her folksy “Joe Sixpack,” “hockey mom,” “Say it ain’t so, Joe, there you go again” quips directly at the huge television audience.
She floated like a butterfly but did not sting like a bee, though she tried to every now and then. She also blatantly dodged questions from moderator Gwen Ifill and returned time and again to the talking points she has been repeating on the campaign trail for weeks. Ms. Ifill did not pursue her, nor did the format allow Mr. Biden to question her directly.
If this had been a boxing match, she might have earned points for style. But Mr. Biden easily deflected her best punches and counter-punched hard.
Her biggest mistake came an hour into the 90-minute debate when she suggested that Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden should “stop the blame game” and look forward instead of backward.
Mr. Biden countered with a jab, “The past is prologue,” and then dropped a hard right hand, “How much is John McCain’s policy going to be different from George Bush’s? I haven’t heard anything yet.”
The second, but ultimately more important job for vice presidential candidates is to demonstrate that they’re capable of being president. After all, that’s the only reason we have a vice president.
In that, Mr. Biden clearly was superior. His grasp of issues came through even in a format that limited his usual loquacity to two-minute remarks. His understanding of nuances of diplomacy, the existential threat of nuclear proliferation and even the vagaries of Iranian governance was far more impressive than Ms. Palin’s rote dependence on her talking points.
On the economy, Ms. Palin may have tickled her supporters with her “gosh darn it” colloquialisms — “You go to a kids’ soccer game on Saturday and you betcha you’re going to hear some fear” — but Mr. Biden had his “Main Street” moment, too: “The people get it,” he said of the economy. “They know they’ve been getting the short end of the stick.”
If, as with doctors, the first rule for vice presidential candidates is “First, do no harm,” then the debate was a success for both sides. The Republican base will be thrilled with Ms. Palin’s performance, and the Democrats always knew what they were getting in Joe Biden.
But this election is narrowing to fewer and fewer states. Polls show that an increasing number of voters have made up their minds, which means the key audience for the debate was neither the crowd at Washington University’s field house nor the audience nationwide, but undecided voters in a handful of key states — Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida and perhaps Missouri among them.
Ms. Palin’s performance may have been entertaining to them. Mr. Biden’s surely was reassuring. But in the next 32 days, the two men at the tops of the tickets will have to seal the deal.