Palin has confounded opponents and staff in previous debates

ANCHORAGE — When she appeared for a candidates forum in front of a room filled with Alaska unionized electrical workers during her run for governor in early October 2006, Sarah Palin arrived woefully unprepared. When union members grilled her on labor policy, Palin faltered.

Afterward, she cursed in anger and berated her staff, recalled two former senior campaign aides who blamed her unwillingness to bone up on workplace issues for the blunder.

But Palin was much more at ease weeks later when she jousted with her two main rivals during critical pre-election debates. She distilled policy questions into simple answers and countered her opponents' attacks with verbal stiletto thrusts delivered with a sunny smile.

When one moderator asked about abortion and pressed about what she would do if her daughter had a child out of wedlock, Palin had a ready answer, defending her anti-abortion stance and deflecting the question toward her male rivals: "I would choose life. And I am confident you will be asking my opponents these same scenarios."

During Palin's brief exposure to the high-stakes environment of political debates, she has unnerved both her handlers and her opponents. She has been handicapped at times by her lax approach to learning the nuances of policy and state issues, but she also has projected a Reaganesque ability to offer up pithy answers and charm on camera.

"The political landscape here is littered with people who have underestimated Sarah Palin," said Eric Croft, a former state representative who ran for the Democratic nomination for governor in 2006 and appeared with Palin during several early forums.

Palin's split-personality debate persona — mirrored both in her confident speech to the Republican convention in Minneapolis in early September and in a series of wobbly performances in recent television interviews — poses a challenge for her Democratic opponent, Delaware Sen. Joseph Biden, as each approaches tonight's nationally telecast vice-presidential debate in St. Louis.

"She has a Reagan-like ability to win over audiences. But for someone who cares about issues and facts, it was rather startling to see her gloss over important questions," said Andrew Halcro, an Alaska businessman who ran as an independent candidate for governor against Palin.

For its part, Sen. John McCain's campaign appears to be taking no chances that Palin will prepare properly. It flew her Monday to McCain's Arizona ranch to cram with a coterie of the presidential candidate's advisers.

As she began her run for governor of Alaska, Palin repeatedly proved difficult to prep for a debate, recalled two former political aides who had pivotal roles during her campaign but declined to be identified because of their continuing involvement in Alaska politics.

Palin, the former aides said, had a sharply limited attention span for absorbing the facts and policy angles required for all-topics debate preparation. Staffers rarely were able to get her to sit for more than half an hour of background work at a time before her concentration waned, preoccupied by cellphone calls and family affairs. "We were always fighting for her attention," one of the aides said.

As time went on, Palin increasingly managed to zero in on the policy issues set before her during debate preparations, and her comfort level rose dramatically. During two final debates broadcast by Alaska public television and an Anchorage news station, Palin appeared to ace her performances, deftly crystallizing her talking points to voters.

By the final key televised debates in late October, Palin had grown used to the format, both her aides and rivals recalled. She had grown breezily confident in her back-and-forth with former Alaska Gov. Tony Knowles and Halcro.

Two years on, Halcro and Knowles admit they are still baffled how their mastery of policy and state issues was trumped by Palin's breezy confidence and feel-good answers.

"When you try to prove she doesn't know anything, you lose, because audiences are enraptured by her," Halcro said. "And her biting comments give you a sense of how competitive she is. Anybody who doesn't take her seriously does so at their peril."