She stood in front of a roaring crowd holding signs saying “Palin Power” and “We love hockey moms.” Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin delivered her first speech on Wednesday night to a nation not yet familiar with her background.

While the quality of substance in her speech may be debated between party lines, no one can claim that the first-term governor of Alaska lacked tenacity or self-confidence in her speech. She was humorous and sarcastic, and as Chris Matthews, host of MSNBC’s “Hardball,” observed, “She is a torpedo aimed directly at the ship of Barack and Michelle Obama.”

Specifically, Palin attacked Obama’s former profession as a community organizer, a comment  for which she has received heavy media backlash.

“I guess a small town mayor is sort of like a ‘community organizer,’ except that you have actual responsibilities,” Palin said as she referred to Obama’s former career in her speech.

College Democrats Treasuer Eric Reif was quick to respond.

“Community organizers are the people who go out work for the people, much like politicians do but for less money and without the support for the federal government,” Reif said.

Although the speech lacked concrete information about government policy, it was emotionally charged as she repeatedly alluded to her commercial fisherman “guy,” husband Todd Palin, and the family values instilled in their five children. Her eldest son Track, 19, will be deployed to Iraq this month, on Sept. 11. As the cameras flashed to the Palin family during the speech, it became clear that her family and stated family values would play a significant role in McCain’s campaign.

In contrast, Democrat Sen. Joe Biden’s vice presidential acceptance speech was drier but pointed more toward policy.

American politics expert and assistant professor of Social Work Yunju Nam said the public can expect this trend to repeat in the vice presidential debate at Washington University on Oct. 2.

“I think Joe Biden will talk more about actual policy; we have some serious economic crisis at this time,” Nam said. “Sarah Palin will approach [the debate] more emotionally. Last night in her speech, she approached it more emotionally [than Biden did].”

Reif said that the vice presidential debate will help swing undecided and independent voters to vote for Obama.

“For people who are still trying to make up their mind, I think the vice presidential debate will be a good indicator that the Obama-Biden ticket is much more prepared to lead the country,” Reif said.

Representatives of the College Republicans were unavailable for comment.

Obama selected Biden, a 35-year veteran of the U.S. Senate and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, because of his experience in foreign policy, a noted area of weakness for the Democratic presidential candidate.

Since the vice presidential debate is still a month away and running mates were only announced in the past two weeks, the media attention will continue to swarm Palin and Biden.

Media coverage on Palin following the revelation of the pregnancy of her 17-year-old daughter Bristol has shed light, and some criticism, on her social stances. Palin opposes abortion even in dire circumstances, supports abstinence-only sex education and recently reduced funding for single teenage mothers in Alaska.

According to Nam, McCain selected Palin as his running mate because she is both a woman and a social conservative, two constituencies that McCain needs to pull in to win the election. However, it will be hard to draw in a large portion of former Democratic presidential candidate and New York Sen. Hillary Clinton’s supporters’ votes with her outspoken socially conservative views.

“Some women maybe excited about Sarah Palin only because she is a woman, but we have to see what policies she is promoting,” Nam said.

After the speech on Wednesday, some attempted to create a connection, albeit a weak one, between Palin and the former main woman of the race—Clinton.

Matthews added that Palin and Clinton “have nothing in common” and that McCain choosing her has “nothing to do with Hillary Clinton.”

While Wednesday’s night speech did highlight Palin’s inexperience in comparison to Biden, it did portray her as a fierce competitor and sent a clear message to the Democrats and pundits that the McCain-Palin ticket will make it an exciting fight for the White House.