ST. LOUIS, Mo. -- Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin painted herself as a plainspoken middle-class champion while Joe Biden blended a common touch with deep experience, as the two vice presidential nominees clashed over Iraq, the economy and other key issues in Thursday's debate.

Palin peppered her responses with ''darn right'' and ''I'll betcha,'' and at one point a wink to the audience, while Biden debated among more traditional lines, offering point-by-point descriptions of where he and Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama stood.

Nowhere was the disagreement sharper than over Iraq. Both Palin and Biden have children in or headed to Iraq, and offered vividly different views.

''We cannot afford to lose there or we're going to be no better off in the war in Afghanistan, either. We have got to win in Iraq,'' Palin said.

Biden fought back, saying that ''Barack Obama's offered a clear plan -- shift responsibility to the Iraqis over the next 16 months. Draw down our combat troops.'' Obama would withdraw one to two brigades a month.

Palin called that plan a ''white flag of surrender,'' and recalled that Biden was for the war, then against it. Biden voted to give President Bush broad authority to wage war in 2002, but has since been a leading critic.

''Oh, man,'' Palin said, 'it's so obvious that I'm a Washington outsider and someone just not used to the way you guys operate . . . you're one who says, you know, as so many politicians do, `I was for it before I was against it,' or vice versa.''

THE PERSONAL TOUCH

That exchange was typical of the 90-minute debate. At the outset, Biden described how Democrats want to help homeowners and financial institutions reeling from the nation's credit crisis by listing ''basic criteria'' an Obama White House would follow.

``You have to focus on homeowners and folks on Main Street . . . you have to treat the taxpayers like investors in this case.''

Palin gave a folksy response.

''Go to a kid's soccer game on Saturday,'' said the mother of five, ``and turn to any parent there on the sideline and ask them, `How are you feeling about the economy?'

''And I'll betcha you're going to hear some fear in that parent's voice,'' she said.

Biden countered such talk with common-man touches of his own, saying he too knew what it was like to sit around a kitchen table with his family. He mentioned having been a single dad after his first wife was killed in a car crash, and choked up as he said it.

Biden concentrated on tying McCain to the record of the Bush administration, while Palin fashioned herself and McCain as middle-class champions who would bring change to Washington.

''You ask anybody . . . whether or not the economy or foreign policy of this administration has made them better off in the last eight years,'' Biden said, ``and whether John McCain differs. . . . The people in my neighborhood, they get it. . . . They've been getting the short end of the stick.''

''Two years ago, remember, it was John McCain who pushed so hard with the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac reform measures,'' said Palin, referring to the two mortgage giants that last month were seized by the federal government.

``People in the Senate . . . didn't want to listen to him and wouldn't go toward that reform that was needed then.''

`MAVERICKS'

After Palin repeatedly referred to herself and McCain as ''mavericks,'' Biden responded sharply, insisting that McCain has never been a maverick ``on things that matter to people's lives. . . . So maverick he is not on things that matter to people at that kitchen table.''

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