Well, that was interesting. And civil. Reaffirming, even. The phrase “Happy Warrior” was first applied in American politics to Al Smith, the Democrats’ 1928 presidential nominee. It was uttered by a warm-up speaker to whom party hacks handed a canned speech to read at that year's convention. That warm-up speaker’s name was Franklin Roosevelt, and the appellation fit him better than it ever did Al Smith. The moniker was also applied frequently to former vice president Hubert H. Humphrey—and it fit him well, too. Now, it can be said of the 2008 vice presidential nominees, both of them.

Sarah Barracuda showed up tonight initially in the guise of Sarah Heath, the popular, polite, Christian girl from Wasilla who everybody liked in high school. “Nice to meet you, senator,” Governor Palin told Joe Biden. “Can I call you Joe?”

Biden was charmed, and it seemed, disarmed. Who wouldn’t be? The two candidates then launched themselves, just as their running mates did last week, into their mutual talking points, complete with misleading statistics, fictional factoids, and partisan spin. Through it all, however, they kept their humanity and their poise, and their good cheer. Loose Cannon believes that it is likely that tonight’s performance left most of the open-minded voters still lurking out there with the feeling that the United States will be all right after November 4, come what may.

In some sense this debate was all about Governor Palin. It’s been a rough couple of weeks for her. First, Palin seemed to pale under the withering questioning of Professors Gibson and Couric (a.k.a. ABC’s Charlie Gibson and CBS’s Katie Couric) in lengthy interviews that turned into interrogations about current events—quizzes that Palin didn’t exactly ace. Using those interviews as ammunition, liberals and much of the media have attacked her relentlessly; some conservatives have even joined in the fun, suggesting that she skedaddle back to Juno. (Yes, that’s a pun, not a typo).Well guess what? She more than held her own tonight.

John McCain didn’t mention the middle class the other night; Palin wouldn’t stop talking about it. She winked at members of the audience a couple of times, pronounced Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s name correctly, spoke of “Joe Six-Pack and hockey moms across the nation,” and joined Biden in a populist excoriation of Wall Street. (“There was greed, deception, and corruption on Wall Street,” she said.)  Did she have any gaffes? One that I noticed: Right after mentioning “Obama,” Palin called Biden, “O’Biden.” In pursuit of Irish-American votes, Biden merely smiled.

For his part, old Joe Biden, who has had days on the campaign when he had several verbal miscues before lunch, was solid. He pronounced Dick Cheney the most dangerous  vice president in American history, ignoring the irrefutably more menacing Aaron Burr, but that wasn’t a gaffe as much as hyperbole. There was a lot of that from both sides. Biden lambasted McCain relentlessly, but steered clear of personal criticism. He was respectful, even warm, toward Palin, but pointedly challenged her several times, most notably on her constant claim that McCain is “a maverick.”

Gwen Ifill, even more than her PBS colleague Jim Lehrer, has a minimalist approach to moderating, and so Biden and Palin went at each other’s ticket directly, but with smiles and un-hostile body language. Ifill asked each candidate—as Lehrer did last week of Obama and McCain—to explain what campaign promises they might not be able to keep because of the Wall Street bailout supported by all four nominees. She got no further than Lerhrer with this question, although she got something: A perky smile and shrug of the shoulders from Palin, who replied, “How long have I been at this—five weeks? So I haven’t promised a lot…”

Ifill also asked Biden and Palin to handicap their own weakness. Each answer devolved quickly into a virtual filibuster about what each candidate sees as their own strengths. In the end, that was all right, because tonight, those strengths were clearly on display.