This just in from Daily Kos

Palin's Debate

by Hunter

Thu Oct 02, 2008 at 05:00:14 PM PDT
To be non-snarky about it (as opposed to, cough, my last post), I don't really expect this debate to be the car crash that her interviews with Couric have been. In the Couric interviews, she was asked a lot of questions, and had little way to prepare for them other than, you know, actually knowing what she was talking about. A debate is different. In general, you know what's going to be asked because you know the moderator doesn't have much time to spend on anything but the most essential points. And you're able to prep for those questions by spitting out the memorized phrases your advisors have drilled into you, and praying to God nobody asks a follow-up.
Biden, I think, needs to all but ignore her presence -- unless she makes a gaffe so egregious that he feels he really has to point it out. There's a real danger in coming off as overly aggressive and patronizing towards McCain's delicate flower of the Arctic, though heaven knows she might just deserve it.

Palin, on the other hand, will likely be as belligerent as possible, primarily going after Obama and fervently ducking the specifics of any and all questions. That's all she's got to work with. The danger to Palin is not that she will be a beginning-to-end catastrophe, unless she's much shallower than we've even been expecting in our worst suspicions. The true threat is that every question is opportunity for a Couric-style gaffe that would be repeated on television for days. To avoid that, I expect she's going to keep to painfully trite generics as much as possible.
This will cause spasms of ecstasy from the Republican base, since generic right-wing platitudes are exactly why she was added to the ticket, and exactly what Republicans seek in their leaders. They'll love her no matter what: she could trip and knock herself unconscious for the entire debate, and they'd still be thrilled with her performance. For other observers, it's an open question as to whether or not her usual word soup can manage to sound competent, or just silly.
Pre-debate thoughts from other Daily Kos editors:

DemFromCT: The usual pundit standard of "the aggressor always wins" is just wrong, and failed in the first Presidential debate. What the GOP base thinks does not matter, and what independents think does. She can't just go after Obama/Biden as liberals. Whether Palin gets off a zinger or not, what really matters to people is whether they can get a college loan for next semester. If she can't address that convincingly, and look Presidential, she loses.

BarbinMD: It's a sad day when the conventional wisdom is that the candidate to be a 72-year old heartbeat away from the presidency only needs to not come off as an idiot to "win" the debate.

Georgia10: Palin will be at her most brilliant, Limbaugh-esque best tonight. She'll toss out the facts and figures she learned at Camp Cramming on Cliff Notes Hill (a.k.a. McCain's ranch), and she'll at least sound like she at least thinks she knows what she's saying. Biden's goal? Have her defend McCain's policies. Repeatedly. Over and over again. And if he wants to go for the jugular? Ask Palin to name one substantive thing that the McCain-Palin ticket disagrees with President Bush on. One thing. As Couric would say...specifically. One striking moose in the headlights moment like that and the Biden-Obama camp can chalk it up to a win.