In the first national political debate that was just a warm-up for the “Saturday Night Live” version, there was a moment early on when Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was asked whether global warming was man-made.

Launching pluckily into the question, Palin declared, “I’m not one to attribute every man – activity of man to the changes in the climate. There is something to be said also for man’s activities, but also for the cyclical temperature changes on our planet.

“But there are real changes going on in our climate. And I don’t want to argue about the causes. What I want to argue about is, how are we going to get there to positively affect the impacts?”

It’s the kind of answer that has to be approached carefully, possibly through remote control instruments. It suggests that you can deal with a problem without knowing what’s causing the problem, and that in fact only a backward-looking sorehead would want to know what caused the problem.

In fact, Palin resented any idea that someone would want to talk about how we got here, or anywhere.

Her approach peaked when, responding to a comment by Delaware Sen. Joe Biden on the economy’s problems, she peppily rebuked him, “Say it ain’t so, Joe, there you go again pointing backwards again. You preferenced your whole comment with the Bush administration. Now doggone it, let’s look ahead and tell Americans what we have to plan to do for them in the future.”

And don’t let’s talk about where we are now.

Leaving things open for Biden’s response: “The past is prologue. How is John McCain’s plan going to be different from George Bush’s?”

Any time either side mentions George Bush, it’s a Democratic gain.

Palin came into the debate knowing about five things: that she and John McCain were a Team of Mavericks, that the surge worked, that we need to drill, that taxes were bad and that the election was all about ordinary American people. These answers had to be adjusted to different questions, and sometimes they didn’t exactly fit.

When it was pointed out that she hadn’t exactly answered a question, she explained, “I may not answer the question the way you or the mainstream media want me to, but I am going to talk straight to the American people.”

On the other hand, Biden, who has had a decades-long problem of opening his mouth and surprising everybody with what comes out, managed to make it clear Thursday night. He was careful, he kept talking about McCain, he looked at Palin with warmth and sometimes serious concern, he kept on message in a way he’s never managed in his career.

To some degree, he looked like another white guy in a suit. But he looked like a responsible, clear-sounding white guy in a suit, and there wasn’t a moment of astonishment.

For him, that’s a victory.

And every so often, as she wandered around trying to connect a question to an answer, he scored solidly.

To a question on the role of a vice president in a post-Dick Cheney era, Palin set off in a trackless wilderness:

“Well, our founding fathers were very wise there in allowing through the Constitution much flexibility there in the office of the vice president. And we will do what is best for the American people in tapping into that position and ushering in an agenda that is supportive and cooperative with the president’s agenda in that position.

“Yeah, so I do agree with him that we have a lot of flexibility in there, and we’ll do what we have to do to administer very appropriately the plans that are needed for this nation. And it is my executive experience that is partly to be attributed to my pick as V.P. with McCain, not only as a governor, but earlier on as a mayor, as an oil and gas regulator, as a business owner. It is those years of experience on an executive level that will be put to good use in the White House also.”

It left things wide open for Biden’s response: “Vice President Cheney has been the most dangerous vice president we’ve had probably in American history.”

Now that’s a vice presidential debate punch line.