I wonder whether Palin will be able to meet even the quite low expectations for her debate performance. So far, the only times she's performed well in this campaign have been times when she's been standing in front of an all-Republican audience and reading off of a teleprompter.
One factor working against her is that she will have a full 90 seconds to respond to each question. In her recent interview with Katie Couric, most of her answers became nonsensical after the first couple of sentences. (This may or may not be why ABC edited her interview with Charlie Gibson so that viewers only heard the first sentence of her response to several questions.)
Also, she will be asked about a wide variety of topics--anything from the economy to Iran is fair game. This is unlike her interviews, which have each focused on a particular area (e.g., foreign relations). It should limit her ability to study up on things that she doesn't know much about (and didn't have any reason to know about before she was nominated for VP a few weeks ago).
Of course, none of us have ever seen her debate before, so who knows? Maybe it will bring out previously hidden knowledge and skill.
As for Biden, there's definitely danger for him, too. Hopefully he noticed that Palin came off much worse in her interview with Couric than in her interview with Gibson. I think this is in large part because Gibson came across as condescening, which seemed to evoke sympathy for Palin from many viewers, whereas Couric remained very pleasant, even when asking tough questions. Couric's approach left no obvious excuse for Palin's sometimes flustered manner or her often shallow and meandering responses.
As long as Biden clearly conveys his knowledge of the issues without also seeming condescending or bullying--and as long as he doesn't commit a major gaffe--he should be fine.
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