Sarah Palin and Joe Biden together proved one thing – that modern-day television debates are less debates in the classical sense than like watching rival infomercials attempt to occupy the same space on the small screen and destroy each other.

Ahead of the October 2 debate, everyone knew the pitfalls facing each candidate, not least the candidates themselves. From Palin, many have expected a Thursday Night Live succession of own goals as her lack of grasp of issues, notably on foreign policy, would mean an inevitable set of pratfalls destined for YouTube. Biden, media reports said before the debate, should be careful not to patronise Palin.

A danger was that Palin would sound coached, and she did not entirely evade it. Stock phrases like “greed and corruption on Wall Street” turned up at intervals about four times. She snatched for the mantle of Ronald Reagan by invoking one of the Gipper’s own television debate phrases, smilingly telling Biden: “There you again, looking backwards again”. Most of all, Palin grabbed for the “change” mantle that once had been the hallmark of the Barack Obama campaign, hammering out the message that John McCain is a maverick, that a McCain White House would be team of mavericks, while in what was anticipated to be a battle for the middle class, Palin was careful to be proud about claiming to be batting for “Joe Six-Pack and Soccer Moms”.

In a fast-paced debate, with moderator Gwen Ifill pitching out short, sharp and very clever questions, it was inevitable that in 90 minutes there would be some stumbles. Palin could be forgiven for getting one or two things backwards. The “toxic mess on Main Street that affects Wall Street” is a reverse of reality, and similarly she said that she was “not the one to attribute the activities of man to the climate” when surely she meant the opposite, that she does not blame climate change solely on human activities.

Some Palin soundbites abandoned all subtlety, but after all no doubt she unspokenly shared the view of Biden that this election “is the most important in your lifetime” as he repeatedly told viewers. “It’s so obvious I’m a Washington outsider,” Palin told Biden, as an overture to accusing him of reversing his positions on issues, throwing in how astonishing it was that this was how “you guys” worked.

Her messages about McCain the maverick and his band of fellow-mavericks came close to sounding like it meant that a Republican victory on November 4 would be tantamount to a bunch of 1960s long-hairs occupying the college dean’s office.

On the body language front, Biden and Palin undoubtedly had been coached about McCain’s mistake in his first debate with Obama in which McCain cast nary a glance at his opponent. The two vice-presidential candidates rarely failed to turn to watch each other during speaking turns. Palin and Biden both had crocodile smiles to deploy, although for my money, Palin’s was the more eerie, often suggesting sneering or smirking at Biden. He had been warned not to be condescending, but more than once, Palin came across just that way. As to the flag pin question, Palin may have won the game of tic-tac-toe. Her flag pin was bigger than Biden’s, and appeared to be gilt-edged.

The opening questions on domestic policy were a happy hunting ground for the two to accuse each other and their principals of being ready to soak the middle class, to raise taxes and of contradicting themselves. Palin clearly had been briefed to continue the damage control about McCain’s successive and mutually contradictory statements about the economy. For Biden, the message was, time and again, that McCain was “out of touch” on the economy. Twice Biden pushed out his selling point that Obama had warned two years ago about the sub-prime mortgage crisis, while for McCain, Biden insisted, it had come as a surprise.

Palin countered that the “team of mavericks” of which she was a member reflected middle America’s view that “we’re tired of the old politics as usual”. “We need to send the maverick to the White House,” Palin said. It was her opener for scathing remarks about “predator lenders” and her first of those several references to “greed and corruption on Wall Street”. Followed up with a homely homily about households themselves needing to remember, as mom and dad no doubt had taught them, she said, “we need to not get ourselves into debt”.

In a debate of this kind, it is inevitable that some questions will not be answered, and the fudging that started in the Obama-McCain debate on the implications for election promises from the financial crisis continued with Biden and Palin. Asked what plans of theirs could not go ahead because of the, ahem, changed financial circumstances, Biden spoke only about what a McCain administration would not be able to do. It sounded almost as if he expected McCain to be sworn in on January 20 next year. Palin evaded the question by talking about what she had done in Alaska, and when pressed by Ifill about what promises she would have to backtrack on, Palin said that she had been in the campaign only since September 4 and had not made many.

Ifill’s question about benefits for people in same-sex relationships saw both vice-presidential candidates pirouetting carefully on the fence, however firm each tried to sound. Biden invoked the constitution to say that same-sex couples in committed relationships should have equal rights before the law, carefully – for conservative undecided voters – apparently trying not to sound frighteningly liberal, while Palin tried to give a similar answer while carefully – given her right-wing background – trying to imply that she was not homophobic. “I am tolerant,” Palin said, in case anyone missed the point. Neither wanted marriage redefined as meaning anything but a union between a man and a woman.

Ahead of the debate, some commentators had cautioned that Ifill should not overload the debate with foreign policy questions, lest she be open to accusations of favouring Biden, chairperson of the senate committee on foreign relations. For all that, a rough glance of notes of the debate shows Biden’s answers as boasting better detail and substance, and this phase of the debate conjured up images of Palin sitting in McCain’s ranch being coached on the issues. Essentially, the exchange on Iraq and Afghanistan was a repeat of the McCain-Obama exchanges on the same topics, if a little bit more vicious. Biden’s support for a drawdown in Iraq was, Palin said, “raising a white flag” in that country. Palin repeated the Republican portrayal of Obama as willing to negotiate with Iran, North Korea et al unconditionally as “dangerous”.

Biden’s assertion of his consistent track record of having been right on foreign policy issues from Iraq to Bosnia and in between, while scathingly condemning the Bush administration’s track record in the Middle East as an abject failure opened the way for Palin to accuse him of talking only about the past. “The past is prologue,” responded Biden, saying that there was no evidence that McCain’s policies would differ from those of Bush.

In all, for all the scarcely concealed aggression and the forced amicability, the caution in the one and only debate, with the stakes so high, made both Palin and Biden risk-averse, and thus every soundbite sounded rehearsed. There were a few good ones.

Biden: “The reason ‘No Child Left Behind' was left behind was because the money was left behind, we didn’t find it”.

Biden (on the implications of the McCain health insurance plan): “I call that the ultimate bridge to nowhere” (a reference to a controversy in Alaska governor Palin’s home state).

Palin (on energy independence of the US): “The chant is, ‘drill, baby, drill’”.

Palin (addressing Biden, on the Middle East): “I am encouraged to know we both love Israel”.

Biden (when Ifill asked him if he had any Achilles Heel other than his lack of political discipline): “You’re very kind suggesting my only Achilles Heel is a lack of discipline”.

Palin (concluding remarks): “I like to be able to answer the tough questions without the filter of the mainstream media”.

And, in many ways, that was what this television spectacle was about. Hyped up by Palin’s gaffes and lacunae on questions of foreign policy, by her generous role in providing hilarious material for posting on YouTube, and further hyped by the fact that Biden has been reliably unreliable over the years, at least part of the television audience may have been tuned in in the hope of a Palin horror show, a reinforcement of the call from some Republicans that she withdraw on the grounds of being an embarrassment.

Pundits are already chattering about who, if anyone, won the debate. On the gaffe front, at least Palin did not lose it. She at least showed the mental capacity to come out with the material she had been coached about. All eyes were going to be on her anyway, if only for entertainment value, but Biden was too defensive – bad for a ticket promising change – and his answers on apparent contradictions in the past insufficiently definitive, especially for those viewers unlikely to fact-check the candidates’ respective claims later. One remarkable thing was Biden seemingly choking up when talking about his family during his concluding remarks, and his telling swipe against Palin, the self-described “soccer mom” for implying that because he was a man, he was less qualified to talk about being a parent.

It is doubtful that the election was won or lost in the Biden-Palin debate. Now, on October 7 and 15, Obama and McCain will have their chances to strike the killer blow that never fell on October 2.