Palin's winks and you betchas divide women of Florida.

It's funny the things that end up being the talking points of a ninety minute debate. I noticed yesterday, as I was watching the vice presidential debate, that Palin, at several points, appeared to wink at the camera. I found it false and folksy and amateurish.

However, the Guardian are reporting this morning that some of the women of Florida, a key state in the forthcoming election, actually found it insulting.

"She is trying to act like a southern belle. She is not acting like someone who could be president of the United States and John McCain is one heart attack away," said Priscilla Glascock, a 26-year-old nurse who is supporting Barack Obama. "The men are going to love it," she sneered.

But for the host Kit Pepper, 52, a member of the non-partisan League of Women Voters, Palin's winking was an affront to the years she spent trying to build up her own political consultancy firm in a male-dominated world.

"She winked at us," Pepper said in disbelief. "All the claims that the media is sexist and the Democrats are being sexist are out the window. The fact that this woman as a vice-presidential candidate stood on national TV and winked at me completely insults me."

I noted yesterday that the wink was a first, I have certainly never known any other vice presidential candidate to wink at the audience.

But for me the wink is typical of Palin. It's her attempt to appear fresh and new and confident. She has nothing if not balls and she attempts to compensate for her dire lack of knowledge by her overbearing confidence and her false intimacy.

The Guardian are reporting that, at the women's debate-watching party which they attended in Florida, even some Republicans found it quite something that she engaged in such behaviour.

"I can't imagine myself doing that wink," said Lydia Gardner, a Republican local government official first elected in 1987. "I lived in Boston. I lived in Washington and I went to a very cosmopolitan and very sophisticated university where that wink maybe would not have been done. But for her, and for where she is from and for her background it's perfectly appropriate."

And whilst all agreed that she had made no significant stumbles, there was still the feeling that Biden had walked away with it and that Palin did not actually inspire confidence.

But even as Palin's little flourishes became an Alaskan blizzard of doggone its, bless their hearts, darn rights, hecks, and you betchas, she did not inspire confidence either.

From the depths of the overstuffed sofa, Day gave Biden much higher marks on substance. "He walked all over her on foreign policy," she said, but then argued that Americans don't vote on international issues anyway.

Palin also failed to dispel the impression that she had been fed her lines by Republican handlers and was dutifully spitting them out again. "If I hear her say the word 'maverick' one more time I am going to shoot somebody - and I am a Republican," said Lisa Romine.

Personally, I thought it typical of someone who is in way over their head and trying to look confident. I honestly thought her folksy charm, whilst vapid, did her some good for the first thirty minutes of the debate. After about thirty minutes though it all became like too much cream and I wanted to throw a tarpaulin over her head and nail down the four corners. I actually found it difficult to get to the end of the debate as it was annoying me so much.

But I find it hysterical that it actually offended some people. I noticed it, but I simply found it rather startling. For others, it appears to have meant much more.

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Tags: Palin, Biden, debate, US election 2008, Florida, women voters