Thursday, October 11, 2012

Biden Takes It To Ryan.

Vice President Joe Biden and Congressman Paul Ryan engaged in their one and only debate this evening.   
Going in most of the pundits said that all the pressure was on the Vice President.  After all he had the job of repairing the damage caused by the president’s poor performance.
We felt that the pressure was on Congressman Ryan.  He had to be the loyal soldier.  He had to set aside policies that he had championed his entire political career in order to publically defend those of Governor Romney.    
The Vice President was prepared, engaged and passionate in his defense of the administration’s policies…all the things his boss was not a week ago.  The Vice President’s task was to stem the bleeding and reenergize the Democratic Party.  Mission accomplished! 
According to the Romney campaign, Congressman Ryan’s charge for the evening was to hold his own and “do no harm”…maintain the bounce that Romney received from last week’s performance.  As expected the congressman was good on the numbers.  But he failed badly on foreign affairs.  And he was noticeably uncomfortable reciting the campaigns position on abortion…a position that differs from his own.
In the end it was a debate that both sides will claim to win.
So who really won?
A CBS flash poll taken among undecided voters immediately following the debate had 51% of those polled calling Biden the winner; 31% said Ryan won and 19% called it a tie.
A similar CNN poll called it 48%-44% in favor of Ryan.
We think Biden won.  He was clearly in command of the stage.  He looked presidential.  And unlike Romney's performance a week ago, Biden not only won on the optics…he won on substance as well.  He answered every question with specifics and deflected every rebuttal with facts.  In fairness, it's hard to debate a guy on foreign affairs who can call the Israeli prime minister by his first name and recounts domestic policy decisions with: "I was in the room when we..."
The Romney campaign agrees with us.  How do we know?  Because in the aftermath all you heard from Romney surrogates were complaints about the vice president’s aggressiveness, his interrupting the congressman and his condescending smile...all the things they cheered Mitt Romney for last week.
When the debate is over and all you can do is criticize your opponents “condescending smile”
…you know you got your ass beat.


 

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