The World

Well, I have just finished watching the vice-presidential debate – and I must admit I feel a bit cheated. I didn’t tune in because I was hoping for enlightenment. I wanted car-crash television: gaffes galore, the implosion of Sarah Palin, something weird from Joe Biden. But  judged by those standards  the debate was a huge disappointment. Palin was, of course, profoundly unimpressive. But she didn’t mess up – she even managed to say “Ahmadinejad”, without stumbling or hesitating. And Biden also avoided any of his trademark gaffes.

The fact that both candidates will be judged to have done OK is – I think – a sorry commentary on how low expectations have sunk. Because by any reasonable standard, it was a pretty sorry performance. Neither candidate even came close to answering the first question, on whether the House of Representatives had been right to reject the bail-out bill. At that point, I longed for the moderator to jump right in and do a Jeremy Paxman – and insist, preferably with a sneer, that they actually answer the question. But no such luck.

So what did we learn? Well, it turns out that both candidates hate Wall Street and Iran; and love Israel and the American middle-class.

I thought that Palin gained in confidence as the debate continued. And some of her most effective moments came on foreign policy, which is meant to be her biggest weakness. She did quite a good job in exposing the awkward fact that Joe Biden supported the Iraq war, while Obama opposed it. Biden occasionally broke the informal rules of the debate, by speaking coherently and making sense, and I thought he was pretty effective in hitting his theme that Obama’s tax proposals were about fairness. At one point, I thought he was actually going to cry when he recalled the injuries his children had suffered in a car crash. How the Obama campaign must have been willing him on! But he pulled himself together and the moment passed.

Strangely, I thought Palin’s weakest passage came right at the end when she was allowed a prepared statement. To me, using her closing peroration to claim that American freedom might be extinguished within a generation, sounded a little goofy and paranoid, and missed the opportunity for an “I feel your pain” moment on the economy. Biden took that chance.

But overall, the debate will have made little difference. I don’t think it will reassure the growing number of people who have voiced doubts about Palin’s ability to serve as president – nor should it. But it won’t add hugely to their numbers, either.

That means the political focus will switch back to where it should be: Congress’s vote on the bail-out and the McCain-Obama battle. Perhaps now, the vice-presidential candidates can be allowed to recede gently into the background.