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The television audience for the Palin-Biden face off on all channels combined was measured by AC Nielsen at around 70m, some 16m more than the top of the ticket attracted six days earlier in Mississippi. Most of the coverage concentrated on just one of the debaters. Biden was in the background. The spotlight, as it has been so often since she was selected by John McCain, was on Sarah Palin.
ABC's Kate Snow (embargoed link) and CBS' Jeff Greenfield analyzed the debaters' performance and style. CBS' Wyatt Andrews analyzed their substance in a Reality Check. NBC's Andrea Mitchell did a little of each. Mitchell noted that Republican partisans were "ecstatic" about Palin's performance, even as Mitchell herself was less inclined to gush: "She tried to charm her way through the hour and a half, limiting potential damage by answering only those questions she wanted to answer." When it came to answering a question about nuclear weapons, Mitchell commented that Palin "sounded confused."
ABC's Snow sat down with Mark Halperin, her network's onetime political director, now with Time. He was effusive. When Palin used the talking point that any criticism of the Republican ticket the relied on the performance of the Bush Administration was "pointing backwards," Halperin called it "a brilliant argument." Halperin conceded that Palin is no "great policy expert" before lavishing praise on her speaking skills: "Is she a Great Communicator like a Ronald Reagan or a Bill Clinton? We are learning that she is."
Referring to Palin's proclamation that she would refuse to answer some of moderator Gwen Ifill's questions, CBS' Greenfield mused that "politicians often ignore a question and talk about what they want to talk about but no one has ever announced that out loud." Greenfield saw no Great Communicator at work, yet he did acknowledge that she managed to "restore her standing with that conservative base and to banish, at least for now, that Tina Fey deer in the headlights image." Palin's strategy was to "reemerge as the feisty, plainspoken, G-droppin', frontier heroine." Yes, and he played us that wink too.
As for Palin's facts, CBS' Andrews called her accusation against Barack Obama that he wanted to raise taxes on households at the median annual income of $42,000 "simply false." He called her claim that millions of small business owners have annual incomes in excess of $250,000 "not even close." He contradicted her assertion that Alaska is building a $40bn natural gas pipeline, saying the project is "at least ten years away." Andrews corrected Biden once, concerning Obama's proposed diplomacy with Iran.
Considering how little attention Biden received in the debate post mortems, CBS' Bob Schieffer (at the tail of the Greenfield videostream) gave him a thumbs up. He judged that Palin's decision to dodge questions could seem "disconcerting" and that Biden had "a very good night," to use a boxing metaphor, winning the debate "on points."
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