It's a duel at sunrise for Sarah Palin and Katie Couric - New York Daily News

Peter Kramer/AP

Sarah Palin, right, meets fans on the street Tuesday with ‘Today’ co-hosts (from l.) Al Roker, Ann Curry and Matt Lauer.

SARAH PALIN ON ‘TODAY’

NBC, Tuesday morning

4 stars

KATIE COURIC ON ‘GOOD MORNING AMERICA’

ABC, all week

3 stars

Be less afraid.

That may be the main message we civilians should take from Tuesday’s parallel appearances by Sarah Palin on NBC’s “Today” show and Katie Couric on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

Yes, we know why the networks set this up. ABC thinks showcasing its latest hot hire all week might push “GMA” past “Today.” NBC hopes Palin’s one-day visit will bring enough of her posse, plus curiosity-seekers, to fend off that challenge.

Did it work? Who knows? In the end, the numbers are network bean-counter stuff.

What we can say is that Palin, who was billed as a co-host but really was more of an extended guest, played her role smartly. Couric made it a little more about Katie, but she knows the morning game. She makes two hours slide down like a latte.

What’s interesting in the broader picture is what these gigs say about where two of the best-known, most ambitious and most polarizing women in the modern politics-and-media game might be going from here.

Katie and Sarah don’t leave a lot of people in the middle. You love ’em or you hate ’em.

They both know that, too, and while they have benefited from it â€" passion always beats indifference â€" their game plans Tuesday sent signals they wouldn’t mind looking a little more welcoming.

From the moment she hit the national stage in 2008 as John McCain’s surprise running mate, Palin has loved playing Mama Grizzly.

When true conservative believers want red meat, she delivers. She’s in such demand as a firebrand and energizer that she quit the Alaska governorship to do it full-time.

But it was a different Palin who showed up Tuesday for “Today.”

It’s not that she backed off on her ideology. She plugged the “marketplace” and got in swipes at the “lamestream media” and Hollywood, favorite targets of those who think America has lost its way.

But Palin also knew she was talking to millions of people who don’t attend political rallies. This was a place to show off a mom who’s proud of her kids, who applauds the entrepreneurial spirit of an ideological opposite like Oprah Winfrey and who can admire Tori Spelling’s stylings for hors d’oeuvres at a fancy Hollywood party.

Palin smiled, used her indoor voice and generally joined the lighthearted banter, some of it self-deprecating, that sets the morning show mood.

Be less afraid.

Couric, meanwhile, continued her game plan from Monday's “GMA,” dusting off the upbeat, chatty and bemused persona that worked so well for her over 15 years at “Today.”

Amid stories involving cops and politics Tuesday, Katie also interviewed Camille Grammer about why she left “Real Housewives.”

This isn’t the Katie who pressed Palin during their famous 2008 presidential campaign interview, who continually needed the gravitas to prove she belonged in the traditionally male seat of the “CBS Evening News” anchor.

Before Katie starts her daytime talk show on ABC later this year, she wants to be sure we know she’s having fun again.

And that there’s no reason to be afraid.