Palin beat expectations in debate, voters say

By Andrea Hopkins

CINCINNATI (Reuters) - The morning after the most anticipated vice-presidential debate in American history, U.S. voters seemed to share a common reaction: Republican Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin wasn't that bad after all.

"Palin held her ground very well," said Cincinnati entrepreneur and Republican Bryan Welage, 42. "I know there had been some issues with whether she would be good at a debate, but I thought she did very well."

New York tour guide and Democrat Joe Kovack, 54, agreed.

"I thought that the debate was even, even. I was surprised that Governor Palin held her own," said Kovack as he waited for tourists in Times Square.

With just a month to go until the U.S. presidential election on November 4, the debate on Thursday night between Republican vice-presidential nominee Palin and her Democratic rival Sen. Joe Biden captured America's attention.

That in itself is a bit unusual. For months, the election campaign has focused on who will be the next president: Republican John McCain, 72, a self-described maverick and long-time senator from Arizona, or Democrat Barack Obama, 47, a first-term Illinois senator who calls for hope and change after eight years under Republican President George W. Bush.

But McCain's choice of the little-known Palin for his running mate stunned Americans. Voters and political pundits alike have been transfixed by the first-term governor and former mayor of a small town ever since.

The heat was on Palin, a 44-year-old self-styled "hockey mom," after a rocky television interview last week in which she struggled to answer several questions and she was lampooned afterward for her suggestion that she had foreign policy experience because Alaska was close to Russia.

But viewers almost universally said Palin held her own against Biden in Thursday's debate.

A CNN poll of 611 adult Americans who watched the encounter found 51 percent thought Biden did the better job in the debate, while 36 percent said Palin did. But an overwhelming 84 percent said Palin did better than expected.

TALKING POINTS

"I didn't think there was a winner," said Cincinnati's Welage, a long-time Republican. "But Palin turned the ball very good on Biden, implying that she's one of the regular people, she and her husband have always been middle-class."

Chris Longley, 47, of St. Paul, Minnesota, said he liked Palin's performance and is leaning toward McCain.

"She seemed to talk directly to the people. I responded to that," Longley said. "She won on style. He won on substance."

Lois Hanson, 78, was also impressed by Palin -- in part because of how much criticism had been heaped on the Alaskan governor, a mother of five.