I thought both candidates had their strengths and weaknesses, and that both matched strengths in some areas.  I thought Palin sounded better in the first half of the debate on the economy, but only because Biden was saying too much in the short amount of time he had.  Biden picked up the lead on the second half of the debate, but there were areas Palin remained strong.

Right from the first question, where Biden zoomed off about a millon points in a minute, I thought he stumbled going into the debate.  He gave a lot of good points in response to the questions, but it was so fast that nobody would be able to pick up on what he was saying.  However, by the second half of the debate, he had slowed down, didn’t try to cram in so much information, and sounded a lot more natural in his responses.

Palin, meanwhile, was a mix of strong and weak on the issues and specifics.  When she talked generally about the issues, she sounded passionate.  This was also seen when she talked about energy, which she went back to…a lot, which I found a little strange at times.  Sometimes, the question didn’t call for going back to energy, yet she did anyway. However, when it came to the specifics, Palin sounded very stumpy the whole debate.  Now, Biden also stumped a bit, and went on talking points quite a bit, but he sounded more natural doing it.  I think Palin made the same mistake tonight that she has when coming in after preparing: she sounded like she was reading from a book.

Speaking of issues, neither candidate really answered the “What spending will you cut?” question that Jim Lehrer gave to McCain and Obama last week.  What is it about that question that nobody wants to answer it?

When it came to personality and character-based questions, I thought both were on even footing.  Both gave great anecdotes when needed.  Also, this is when both were at each other’s throats the most, at least in terms of attacks, and in this both shined.  I particularly liked that both Biden and Palin seemed to be having fun with this debate.  It’s a stark contrast from last week, which was a lot more serious.

Stylistically, Biden didn’t have any major gaffes, and didn’t sound condescending.  My one major point of contention with him was that a couple times he interrupted the moderator to get in one last point.  I thought this was a bit rude, since the moderator should be the one controlling the debate, not the candidate.  Yet overall he sounded commanding and knowledgeable without sounding like a know-it-all.

Palin also didn’t come off with any major gaffes.  There was one point where she started to stumble at the beginning of an answer, but made a quick save.  If I do have one thing I didn’t like, it’s that it was actually Palin who made the only condescending statement of the night.  At one point, when Biden was attacking Bush and McCain on their records, she started rebuttal with an old favorite, “there you go again,” and discussed how Biden was spending a lot of time attacking Bush and McCain on the past.  The last time we saw this used, it was Ronald Reagan using it against Jimmy Carter.  I’d like to point out that if Biden had said that tonight, he would have been getting a smackdown by Republicans tomorrow morning.  I guarantee it.

There were a few funny moments of the debate.  At one or two points, Biden got practically Dole-ish.  In that, he started referring to himself in the third person.  I found it funny.  Palin’s funny moment was when she mispronounced “nuclear” the same way President Bush does.  Expect liberals to start a list of Palinisms in 3…2…1…

Overall, while I thought Palin sounded very folksy and genuine during many parts of the debate, and handled herself well, I’m going to give a slight win to Joe Biden, just because he sounded more natural and prepared when giving specifics.  Even though he had problems on the first half of the debate in this area, I thought Palin’s problems with specifics were apparent throughout.  However, she did handle herself very well.

So, on to the next debate, which will be on Tuesday.

UPDATE: A couple things I forgot:

• When Biden was speaking about being a single parent and his son going off to Iraq, I thought I caught a moment where he cracked his voice.  Then he recovered quickly and I chalked it up to some other strange vocal phenomenon.  Yet, pretty much every other analysis I’ve read tonight thinks he was on the verge of crying.  If so, I wonder how it’ll be taken.  Remember that back in the primaries, Clinton had a moment like that, and voters saw it positively.
•  I thought Biden had a nice comeback to Palin’s assertion that that Obama voted against a troop funding bill multiple times, namely that McCain voted against several funding bills, too.  However, he didn’t actually explain why Obama voted against these bills; nothing I caught anyway.  Yet, Palin had moments where she didn’t explain McCain’s position on voting against something, so this is a wash.
• While discussing deregulation, Biden made mention of the article where McCain had talked about deregulating the healthcare industry like the banking industry.  I’ve written about this before.  When he brought it up again tonight, I didn’t like it.