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Palin and Biden Face Off on Economy, Foreign Policy

In the first and only vice presidential debate this election cycle, Sen. Joe Biden (D) and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) squared off in St. Louis, Mo., Thursday night with friendly but pointed exchanges on the economy, taxes and energy policy.

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On health care, Palin said Americans would not want it "taken over by the feds," while Biden accused McCain of trying to fool the public with a tax credit for health-care insurance that would become more expensive because of the Republican's policies.

"So you're going to have to place -- replace a $12,000 plan with a $5,000 check you just give to the insurance company," Biden said. "I call that the ultimate bridge to nowhere."

Palin, who governs the nation's largest oil-producing state, was aggressive on energy, calling opposition to expanded drilling a "nonsensical position" and saying that "people are so hungry for those domestic sources of energy to be tapped into."

Biden blasted McCain on the issue, saying: "John McCain has voted 20 times against funding alternative energy sources and thinks, I guess, the only answer is drill, drill, drill. Drill we must, but it will take 10 years for one drop of oil to come out of any of the wells that are going to begun to be drilled."

The debate devoted very little time to social issues. But Ifill did seek to clarify the candidates' positions on same-sex marriage.

Both said they oppose redefining marriage, and they seemed also to agree on the need for legal rights for gay couples.

"No one would ever propose, not in a McCain-Palin administration, to do anything to prohibit, say, visitations in a hospital or contracts being signed, negotiated between parties," Palin said.

Biden praised that answer, saying, "If that's the case, we really don't have a difference."