I don’t know how qualified I am to write this post considering I only watched about half of the Vice Presidential Debate between Governor Sarah Palin (R) of Alaska and Senator Joe Biden (D) of Delaware last night, but here’s what I thought.

Palin exceeded expectations.  Granted, no one expected much from her to begin with, but she exceeded them.  She touched on all the questions that I watched – skirted around them, but I heard her answer only one or two questions completely.  Prepped well, on some topics she seemed knowledgeable and wasn’t afraid to let her stance be known.  But others made it seem like she was merely repeating what she was told probably a week ago.  There had been a lot of talk that Palin was either going to crash and burn at the debate, or she was going to exceed expectations, making it seem like she won.  Again, I didn’t watch the entire debate, so I cannot pass judgment.  All in all, I think Palin had a strong (at least first half) debate.

Biden, I thought, came out strong.  It was clear that he understood the questions and, more importantly, his stances on the issues at hand.  I was hearing a lot of analysts say that they were concerned that his long-windedness would be a turn-off at the debate, but last night the Senator kept his responses short and sweet.  Biden seemed uncharacteristically friendly for a debate.  He was smiling the entire night.  Not delivering much criticism at Palin herself, Biden chose, instead to attack John McCain but ever so lightly.  Strong liberals may be upset that Biden didn’t capitalize on the opportunity to pounce on McCain and Palin more strongly, but I think, for the little bit that I watched, Biden handled himself and his attacks well.