ST. LOUIS — Focused sharply on the middle class, Sarah Palin and Joe Biden fought over taxes, military strategy and which party could better rebuild America in a vice presidential debate Thursday that served as the nation's first extended look at the little-known Alaska governor who vaulted weeks ago onto the Republican ticket.
Returning over and over to the themes that have marked the campaign -- the nation's threatened economy and wars in Afghanistan and Iraq -- the two differed tartly but mostly peaceably.
Leaving Palin largely untouched, Biden went after Republican presidential candidate John McCain, the Arizona senator cited repeatedly by Palin on Thursday as a "maverick."
"He has been no maverick on the things that matter to people's lives," said Biden, ticking off several examples of McCain's fealty to Republican views. "He's not been a maverick on the war. He's not been a maverick on virtually anything that genuinely affects the things that people really talk about around their kitchen table."
Palin was equally blunt in her characterization of the Democratic ticket, led by Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois.
"Your plan is a white flag of surrender in Iraq, and that is not what our troops need to hear today -- that's for sure -- and it's not what our nation needs to be able to count on," Palin told Biden in a critique of Democratic proposals to draw down combat troops in Iraq.
During the 90-minute debate from the campus of Washington University, both candidates appeared at least initially to have met the goals set by the campaigns at the outset.
For Palin, the newcomer to the national stage, that meant demonstrating an understanding of federal issues and an ability to think on her feet. For Biden, the six-term Delaware senator, that meant tamping down his loquaciousness and steering clear of anything remotely condescending.
Neither candidate appeared to make a career-altering gaffe. Palin twice called the commanding U.S. general in Afghanistan "Gen. McClellan"; his name is Gen. David McKiernan.
While Palin played up her hockey mom background, the debate's most emotional moment came when Biden choked up as he discussed the 1972 auto accident that killed his first wife and infant daughter, and gravely injured his two young sons.
Referring to his "excessive passion" in a question from moderator Gwen Ifill about his weaknesses, Biden veered from a soliloquy about his working-class roots to the decades-old tragedy, his voice catching midway through.
