There's no doubt that Joe Biden won the debate, but Sarah Palin also came up quite a bit from her disastrous showing with Katie Couric. Why? Because the debate, which actually, to my immense surprise and satisfaction, was actually more of a debate than any other staged political performance I have seen for awhile,had no ground rule provision for followup questions.

According to the New York Times, the McCain campaign pushed for this arrangement, which is more restrictive than the two-minute-response, five-minutes-of-open-discussion format of the first McCain-Obama debate, because the looser "format could leave Ms. Palin, a relatively inexperienced debater, at a disadvantage and largely on the defensive."

How much can a candidate say in 90 seconds? Depending on his or her mouth speed, somewhere in the neighborhood of 250 to 300 words. During the 2004 vice-presidential debate between Dick Cheney and John Edwards, the candidates were allowed 120 seconds per question, and they rarely spoke more than 400 words. (The rules that year allowed for 90-second rebuttals and discussion-extension intervals at the moderator's discretion.) To give you a sense of the brevity of 400 words, this article is just passing the 300-word mark.

Whether you give a candidate 90 or 120 seconds to speak, abbreviated formats leave the weakest ones plenty of room to hide. Because no rule forces the candidate to burn all of the allotted time answering the question, he can evade complexity and nuance by giving a rehearsed 30-second sound bite, especially if there is no provision for a follow-up question—which there usually isn't.

When the moderator doesn't ask, for whatever reason, followup questions, you end up not only with off the point, deflection answers, and an overall appearance of deference for the candidates.

Before going further, what Justin Webb of the BBC has said about followup questions is right on point.

The difference between last night's debate and the interviews Palin held with Katie Couric, are that, when Couric saw that the questions she asked were not being answered or dodged or deflected, she pressed Palin. Asked again. Asked for examples. Did what a good journalist should do. My estimation of Couric went up tremendously with those interviews.

And asking followup questions shakes people loose from the memorized answers and talking points that one can give in a *canned* speech, because it requires some thought to address what is actually being asked, rather than the 3x5 card answer one wants to give.

Last night, Couric did the 3x6 answer type. And she did a good job of it. But she still needs to go before a gaggle of reporters, from a large variety of sources, to answer questions, with followup questions, about the issues that others perceive as being untruths. If the McCain campaign seeks to closet her away or limit her interviews only to those who are friendly already, will not ask the tough questions, including followups, we will not know the 1 mettle of Sarah Palin.