These are off-the-cuff reactions, without having seen any commentary on the debate.
In my only post on the subject prior to the VP debate, I talked a little bit about the “expectations game” and the extent to which it’s reasonable or unreasonable to use it as a frame for evaluating the debate. The basic theme I tried to lay out was that while beating expectations — particularly when the bar was set as low as it was for Gov. Palin — wasn’t enough for a win per se, it’s not entirely untrue that Palin doing better than expected was irrelevant if she didn’t objectively beat Joe Biden. Insofar as some voters who would be agnostic about a seemingly typical, average, mediocre politician might still be turned off if they thought Palin was in a uniquely dim-witted class, she could still score points simply by being pretty good if that would move her overall impression into “average” territory.
So, did Palin “beat expectations”? You can get my take and my analysis over at The Debate Link.