Clearly the WSJ isn't exactly fair & balanced. And clearly, Palin won't be coming up with a lot of factual support or citing specifics for policy change.
But do you really think the one with the best numbers/facts "wins"? Ask Kerry, Gore, or Dukakis...
For undecided voters, policy don't mean shit. That's why they're undecided, despite the vast differences in policy positions between these two.
For undecideds, it's about about personality & one-liners & who beat expectations. "Winsomeness" is Palin's bread and blubber. In the Alaska debates, former state legislator Andrew Halcro presented facts and figures to support his positions, but she dismissed him, saying he could be the state statistician.
From the WSJ: "With Andrew, she was saying, basically, 'Gee, all your facts and numbers are nice, but the voters just don't care.'"
Two years later, both men concede that they may have underestimated Gov. Palin's ease during the debates, or how disciplined she could be in staying on message."
[Palin made] a virtue of not knowing as much about the minutiae of state government because, for most of her adulthood, she was immersed in small-town life and raising a family... She explained that she was in tune with environmentalists because she named a daughter, Bristol, for Alaska's Bristol Bay. She demonstrated her affinity for Native American culture by citing the teachings of her husband's Yu'pik Eskimo grandparent.
Halcro himself goes into further detail in his article in the Christian Science Monitor: What It's Like to Debate Sarah Palin
"Palin is a master of the nonanswer. She can turn a 60-second response to a query about her specific solutions to healthcare challenges into a folksy story about how she's met people on the campaign trail who face healthcare challenges. All without uttering a word about her public-policy solutions to healthcare challenges."
I'm guessing all Palin's cramming will have her naming foreign leaders like Bush in 2000. Anyone who saw her "fungible" comments can testify she has the ability to memorize, even if she doesn't always put the words in the right order. (Though her pseudo-endorsement of Hamas shows her diverting less deftly.)
I personally believe that US Americans will see through her charade. Or is that just a hope not based in reality? Please little baby Jesus, let the debate goes deeper than a folksy anecdote or half-remembered string of buzzwords.