She did well for 10-15 minutes. Then the repetition became really obvious.

I was the President of my high school speech class. I went "to state." I was good.

She said, and I'm paraphrasing, but it's close. "I'm not necessarily going to answer the questions that you or the moderator asks, but I'm talking about what I want to."

"I don't care what you say, I'm going to just say whatever the hell I want" to is not acceptable at any form of intelligent debate.

If I had done that I would have received an F.

Honest grade: F

Biden's smack down about McCain not being a Maverick when it mattered was the real winner. The economy, the war, healthcare, education, John McCain was not a maverick on one important matter.

She never said Maverick again.

I would call that an A.

And the whole, "let's not look back" is "lets not talk about how I killed your children, that was YESTERDAY."

Sickening.

The e-meters dropped off a cliff when she insisted -- always with that shark-like self-satisfied smile -- that we are going to stay in Eye-rack until there's victory.

She also said that John McCain has "won wars" for the United States. Vlad the Impalin is either setting the bar a lot lower for winning wars, or he didn't get shot down on his first mission over Vietnam. She just smiled her way out of the White House.

At 10:20 PM, I e-mailed my husband, who's traveling in California, to say I thought Palin had won the debate... even though Biden had been substantive and respectful (more than Palin desreved). At 10:30 I e-mailed him again, to say, never mind. Biden slaughtered her in the last 10 minutes of the debate. No contest. Cleaned her clock. Way to go, Joe.

Unlike the first Presidential debate, I was brave enough to watch this one :). I'm anxious to see what some of our more conservative posters, such as ReaderReader, thought. As for myself, while I would say Biden won on substance, and that Palin overplayed the folksiness and lacked a few too many details for my tasts, I thought that she generally acquitted herself well. I think that if you were a conservative, you could come away feeling re-energized and more comfortable. If you were a female who may/may not be a McCain-Palin supporter, but nonetheless were praying that she wouldn't fall on her face, you could come away satisfied. I'm sure there will be a lot of posting back and forth about the substance of the debate...we'll hear from Virt and Vashon that she cleaned Biden's clock, and many of us will beg to differ (including myself), but if you were expecting a train wreck tonight, you didn't get one.

The first rule of a Vice-President is "do no harm". Neither of them did. It was a fascinating debate to watch.

Joan, I agree with your friend. When Biden choked up talking about his family, I knew he had won.

She had talked about bein' a hockey mom, and her Downs syndrome child, while conveniently forgetting to mention her pregnant, unmarried teenage daughter. Then Biden responded with great sincerity about knowing what it's like to be a single father, leading into his own family tragedy. And when he choked up, that sealed the deal.

Cruel words to a man who lost his first wife.

Sorry, Salon readers, I promised to stop bothering you last night. Just wanted to say I thought your man Biden did a good job tonight -- he's hard to dislike and will make a fine vice president should he be elected. Also, I think my gal Palin did exceptionally well, particularly given the pressure (some self-inflicted, to be sure) she faced. As I mentioned earlier, I am from Indiana and remember Dan Quayle's struggles, including unfair incidents which I think personally impacted he and his family. I hope Dan and Marilyn are out there smiling somewhere tonight, seeing another embattled young VP conservative fighting hard and coming out on top -- in terms of both acclamation and self-respect. (Quayle had a fine career, but never quite escaped the P.R. half-nelson in which he found himself back in that summer of '88). As for November, we'll just have to wait and see. Palin would be great for the country, should she prevail. Remember, the lesson of Rocky is not whether you win or lose, but whether you can hold your head up with pride when the final bell rings. All four candidates can do that now, after turning in strong debate performances. This past week has witnessed some very good moments for our democracy.

So long, Salon posters. It's been nice bantering with you over the past several weeks.

She refused to even come close to the subject at hand when called to answer many of the questions, and her rebuttals were the same thing, meandering off into her script of talking points instead of saying anything remotely close to what was being talked about. She hardly did what she was supposed to be there to do. Debate. This was mostly a stump speech with another person standing beside her. The only difference this time is that it was Joe Biden instead of John McCain.

I truly expected her to express human sympathy with Biden, and her failure to do so showed me something deeply wrong with her. But maybe that's just me.

My husband and I both turned around at that point (we had the TV on, listening but not watching. Her reaction was just cold, not Christian at all. He humanized himself. She came off as a total political machine at that moment. Borg queen without the menace.

I think the pundits will call for Palin, but independant voters will not like the way she ducked the economic questions. People's 401Ks are getting hurt- they don't care about gay marriage or "aw ahucks". Make the financial bleeding stop. Neither convinced me on the economics, but Biden came closer.

Biden is correct- the vice president is a part of the executive branch, and only votes if the Senate is in tie. For Constitutional literalists and libertarians, Palin blew it. Biden blew it with the "timetable" talk, but he is right that we can not gives troops to Afghanistan until we get them out of Iraq. She blew the numbers question- we still have 15 brigades, but we have more support troops and MPs in Iraq, so we are not at pre-surge troop levels.

I just came out thinking that she was vicious. That's not good for her in my small town.