FRANCE 24’s special team of Observers weigh in on the Palin v. Biden debate. Click here to read their verdicts.

In their first and only televised debate before the Nov. 4 election, US vice presidential candidates Sarah Palin and Joe Biden faced off over the economy, foreign policy, climate change and a host of issues in a lively debate punctuated by spirited punch lines and even the occasional laugh.

The 90-minute debate at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, kicked off with a clash on the causes and solutions to the current financial crisis. 

Accusing John McCain of supporting deregulation, Biden called the Republican presidential candidate’s economic platform “the ultimate bridge to nowhere.” Palin, on the other hand, dismissed Barack Obama’s tax cut plan for middle class Americans as a “backward way of trying to grow the economy”.

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Iraq was next on the agenda, with Palin echoing McCain’s rhetoric on the need to win the war in Iraq. Despite fears over her lack of foreign policy experience, the Alaskan governor succeeded in going on the offensive over Biden’s voting record on Iraq. While noting that Biden had voted for the war, she accused the longtime Democratic senator of failing to support the surge strategy.

"Your plan is a white flag of surrender in Iraq,” Palin told her Democratic rival. “And that is not what our troops need to hear today. That's for sure.”

‘Aw, say it ain’t so, Joe’
 

Going into the debate, the pressure on Palin was high following her shaky performance during recent media interviews.

But during the free-style debate moderated by Gwen Ifill from US public television, PBS, she frequently opted for the folksy style that made her an instant success with the Republican base following her nomination.
 

“Doggone it,” she exclaimed at times and appeared to bait her opponent, a 36-year veteran of the US Senate, with quips such as, “Aw, say it ain’t so, Joe.”
 

Reporting from Washington University in St. Louis, FRANCE 24’s Guillaume Meyer said Palin appeared less scripted than during her recent media interviews.
 

“She sounded a little more liberated,” said Meyer. “She tried to sound like the original Sarah Palin, the Sarah Palin that was introduced to the American voters just a few weeks ago when she was introduced to the public at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota.”

Sharp exchanges on climate change and the war on terror

The differences between the two candidates were sharpest on climate change, with Palin declaring that human activity was not the root cause of global warming.

"I don't want to argue about the causes," said Palin referring to her opinion on the origins of climate change. "What I want to argue about is, how are we going to get there to positively affect the impacts?"

In a sharp retort, Biden remarked that "if you don't understand what the cause is, it's virtually impossible to come up with a solution". "We know what the cause is. The cause is man-made. That's the cause. That's why the polar ice-cap is melting.”

When asked about their views on Pakistan, Biden noted that the rising extremism in Pakistan’s tribal zones posed the greatest security threat to the US. “By the way,” said the senator from Delaware, “that’s where Osama bin Laden lives”.

For her part though, Palin maintained that “the central war on terror is in Iraq”.

While Thursday night's face-off was the first and only debate between the vice-presidential nominees, Obama and McCain are set to face-off again on Oct. 7 and Oct. 15.