Well, she didn't do that with Biden in 2008 when she had her national audience watching. She tried to make nice, a la Jack French Kemp with Algore.
As I recall, she did good in her debate. The debate wasn’t supposed to showcase Palin’s ability to tear Obama up.
Palin was really really strong going up there and making speeches with effective funny mocking lines tearing up Obama.
McCain’s argument seemed to include “well Obama’s great, but I too exist”. Palin did seem to understand reminding everyone how great Obama was because of fear of being called racist was not an effective strategy for victory. Didn’t really work too well at not being called racist.
Comparing Paul and Palin here, Palin will likely take it direct to Obama, and Paul could, but has a tendency to not ignore things Republicans did to make things worse. Republicans do not like to hear from Republicans that things that Republicans do can make things worse. Paul talks about those things more than Republicans like. The amount of that Palin does is just right for Republicans.