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I thought it was basically a tie, with Ryan having a slight edge - basically I march in line with that CNN poll. I say that mainly because both guys got what they wanted out of the debate.
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Frankly, I thought it was Biden’s to lose. I didn’t think it would be a rout, but Biden is actually pretty good - big personality, experienced, good storyteller - and, with Ryan’s inexperience and propensity to get too far down into the weeds, I though Biden had the slight edge going in. I think he lost it. The boorish behavior was staged and intentional, but completely unnecessary - he didn’t need to do it.
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The choice to have Biden talk over Ryan was plainly deliberate to get him off his game - just like trash-talking in sports. It worked - a little. But, and this is independent of politics, talking over someone isn’t a sign of strength, it’s a sign of weakness - it says you are afraid for others to hear what is going to come out of that person’s mouth. Everyone but the baselings get this and feel this, and it hurt Obama/Biden.
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The choice to have Biden rally the base I get, but I think it was a mistake. VP debates ordinarily don’t impact the game very much - but this was no ordinary VP debate. This was a VP debate following perhaps the worst routing of a candidate (certainly a sitting president) in a debate that anyone can remember (and the polling supports this) and a momentum swing, and due to that, I think it would have been wiser to try and reverse some of that damage with independents, and skip the red-meat throwing to the base. Maybe it doesn’t work because it just the VP debate, but I think after the first debate catastrophe and momentum shift, you do your best with it. They chose not to, and I think even the “base effect” will be a short-lived sugar high.
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Ryan did ok, but just ok. Too wonky, and needs to get better at messaging themes. But, he passed the test for voters watching, and appeared more presidential than Biden by remaning cool and insisting on a substantive debate.
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Also, fantastic neutralization of the 47% theme on the part of Ryan. Funny.
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Biden may have caused real problems with his answers on Benghazi.
[quote]countingbeans wrote:
[quote]PB Andy wrote:
I did check in for a couple minutes and God, I too wanted to punch Biden in the mouth. All that snickering…[/quote]
Do you lean right otherwise?
I only ask because I’m curious how that played with people. I feel he went to far with it, but I’m so biased this year it is hard to tell what is what. when you’re a hammer, everything is a nail.[/quote]
I know you asked Andy, but I’ll give you my opinion as an “Independent”.
It definitely went too far. I could maybe understand him doing it on occasion if Ryan had said something outrageous, but after he did it EVERY TIME Ryan said something, it just came off as a lame tactic to try and discredit Ryan to the viewers. And after a few times, all I could think about was how big his teeth looked.
And to also give you conservatives here a bit more to go on from an independent viewpoint, I voted for Obama in 2008. I will most likely be voting for Romney this fall.
Oh, and best line I read all night: “Ryan was one question away from getting Biden to admit that he ordered the Code Red.”
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
- If I let it it could really depress me that the ignorant convictionless brain dead middle will decide another election.[/quote]
Don’t give up on ALL of us in the middle. Not all of us are convictionless. Or brain dead.
And if enough of them are like me, you might end up thanking them. That “decision” they make just might be in your favor.
New CNN poll among likely voters has Romney advantage is Florida.
[quote]cueball wrote:
Don’t give up on ALL of us in the middle. Not all of us are convictionless. Or brain dead.[/quote]
Exactly. There is nothing bad about being a “middle” voter - life is complicated and full of trade-offs, and so must be politics. As the old political adage goes (paraphrasing), “If you agree with a candidate on 7 out of 10 issues, vote for them. If you agree with a candidate on 10 out of 10 issues, seek help.”
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Biden did what a typical lawyer (and I say this as a lawyer) does when he has a bad case — go on the offensive and pound his fist and act outraged. Substantively, the admin has not done well on the economy and foreign affairs. The endless regulations are killing business and we are teetering on WWIII. People have been killed because Obama is weak and has backed bad guys in the ME. This a real problem.
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Playing politics and smirking I understand as a lawyer, but I expect more than politics and gamesman ship at this level — a good leaders admits mistakes and when other people have good ideas. Biden smirking and laughing his way through the fact that Iran is about to have nuclear weapons is just disgusting.
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Biden continuted the cover-up crap about the abassador in Libya saying it was a crowd. That really hurts his credibility. The CIA folks testified yesterday afternnon that they knew it was a carefully-planned attack, knew who did it, and told the Obama Admin about it. The Libyians said the same thing weeks ago. I understand the motivation for a cover up — the abasador was begging for more security, Obama denied it for various reasons, and the abassador was raped and killed as a result. Bad decision. Well, the cat is out of the bag. Own up on the bad decision and stop trying to cover it up. The cover up is rapidly heading to be much worse than the bad decision and it stays in the news now.
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Not a big deal to me, but ObamaCare does require religious groups to provide abortion insurance. That’s why my law firm represents a Roman Catholic diocese suing the Obama adminstration. For Biden to lie about something so confirmable was strange. He’s either clueless or so dishonest that he knows that he can lie and most people won’t check.
Final thoughts: I watched this debate with my inlaws who are Hasidic Jews in NYC. They were loyal Democrats until the Carter disaster of a presidency and Rev. Sharpton caused a pogrom that resulted in their front door being knocked down by a racist mob of blacks. Still heavy Democrat tendancies. Voted for Carter, Reagan, Reagan, Dukakis, Clinton, Clinton, Gore, Kerry, reluctantly McCain, if that helps you. They are voting for Romney without hesitation and summed up the debate by saying “Biden is a lying putz.”
[quote]cueball wrote:
[quote]countingbeans wrote:
[quote]PB Andy wrote:
I did check in for a couple minutes and God, I too wanted to punch Biden in the mouth. All that snickering…[/quote]
Do you lean right otherwise?
I only ask because I’m curious how that played with people. I feel he went to far with it, but I’m so biased this year it is hard to tell what is what. when you’re a hammer, everything is a nail.[/quote]
I know you asked Andy, but I’ll give you my opinion as an “Independent”.
It definitely went too far. I could maybe understand him doing it on occasion if Ryan had said something outrageous, but after he did it EVERY TIME Ryan said something, it just came off as a lame tactic to try and discredit Ryan to the viewers. And after a few times, all I could think about was how big his teeth looked.
And to also give you conservatives here a bit more to go on from an independent viewpoint, I voted for Obama in 2008. I will most likely be voting for Romney this fall.[/quote]
Thanks for the opinion. Makes me feel a bit better about my own bias lol, it isn’t too bad.
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
As the old political adage goes (paraphrasing), “If you agree with a candidate on 7 out of 10 issues, vote for them. If you agree with a candidate on 10 out of 10 issues, seek help.”[/quote]
Ha. Love it.
The VP debate went about as I thought it would. The talks tend to be more performance than informative discussions. Joe Biden went out of his way to make sure not much was discussed with his reported 80 plus interruptions of Paul Ryan. Disappointing, but that seems to be the state of politics these days.
It wasn’t talked about much, but found the VPs remarks about the troubling events in Libya interesting. I’m guessing we will be hearing more about this in the future.
“Biden?s Self-Damage on Libya Narrative”
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/10/12/bidens-self-damage-on-libya-narrative/
snippet from Alana Goodman’s article:
"…As Jonathan noted earlier, Biden specifically contradicted the senior State Department officials and whistle blowers who just testified under oath before the House Oversight Committee earlier this week, and also took a direct swipe at the intelligence community. Josh Rogin reports on more:
Vice President Joe Biden claimed that the administration wasn?t aware of requests for more security in Libya before the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S. mission in Benghazi during Thursday night?s debate, contradicting two State Department officials and the former head of diplomatic security in Libya.
?We weren?t told they wanted more security. We did not know they wanted more security there,? Biden said.
In fact, two security officials who worked for the State Department in Libya at the time testified Thursday that they repeatedly requested more security and two State Department officials admitted they had denied those requests.
This, along with Obama spokesperson Stephanie Cutter?s bombshell gaffe about politicizing Benghazi yesterday, means that last night?s debate probably won?t help shift the news cycle away from Libya, as the Obama campaign may have hoped. Instead, it raises even more questions for them, including: who?s telling the truth on security requests, the State Department and the security personnel on the ground or Vice President Biden?"
I thought Joe was trying to plagiarize saint Reagan but he came off looking more like the joker high in his own toxin. Like what everyone else said the committed on either parties minds are already made up but I feel joey’s performance migjt have turned off the independents
Haven’t read through the thread yet, but here’s my impression:
Each candidate did what he set out to do. Ryan held his own against a guy who’s been around and seen it all, so that’s impressive. On foreign policy Ryan equivocated and bumbled, on domestic policy they each gave their canned speeches and pretty much split the pie. A coupe of smirks or eye-rolls would’ve been OK, but Biden came across as condescending with the constant attitude (still better for him politically than pulling an obama and taking an hour-and-a-half nap on national television).
Ryan impressed me a lot when Biden brought up the bit about him requesting stimulus money. That did look bad for Ryan, justifiably or not, but instead of denying it he went with the truth. If a politician’s gut instinct is to acknowledge something that makes him look bad, especially something that can’t be proven, he is a rare politician.
Al in all, I see this changing nobody’s mind. But it was refreshing and lively. The NYT said it well–best political conversation in years.
[quote]smh23 wrote:
Ryan impressed me a lot when Biden brought up the bit about him requesting stimulus money. That did look bad for Ryan, justifiably or not, but instead of denying it he went with the truth. If a politician’s gut instinct is to acknowledge something that makes him look bad, especially something that can’t be proven, he is a rare politician.
[/quote]
This is a great point, and Ryan palyed it perfectly “of course I asked for the money my people wanted. That is what we are supposed to do” (not a direct quote, but rather how I heard it.)
[quote]countingbeans wrote:
[quote]smh23 wrote:
Ryan impressed me a lot when Biden brought up the bit about him requesting stimulus money. That did look bad for Ryan, justifiably or not, but instead of denying it he went with the truth. If a politician’s gut instinct is to acknowledge something that makes him look bad, especially something that can’t be proven, he is a rare politician.
[/quote]
This is a great point, and Ryan palyed it perfectly “of course I asked for the money my people wanted. That is what we are supposed to do” (not a direct quote, but rather how I heard it.)[/quote]
I have to disagree with this. Ryan even more than Romney has been framing the TARP issue as a matter of morality and principles, but here he is standing around with his hand out begging for the money for his constituents. Obviously he shouldn’t lie about it, but frankly this was the biggest score for Biden of the night, at least for me. Although it was really hard for me to sit and listen to Biden act like he’s the champion of the middle class when he’s the biggest whore for the credit card companies there is and the bankruptcy “reforms” he championed did more to hurt the little guy than just about any law I can think of in recent memory.
[quote]jjackkrash wrote:
[quote]countingbeans wrote:
[quote]smh23 wrote:
Ryan impressed me a lot when Biden brought up the bit about him requesting stimulus money. That did look bad for Ryan, justifiably or not, but instead of denying it he went with the truth. If a politician’s gut instinct is to acknowledge something that makes him look bad, especially something that can’t be proven, he is a rare politician.
[/quote]
This is a great point, and Ryan palyed it perfectly “of course I asked for the money my people wanted. That is what we are supposed to do” (not a direct quote, but rather how I heard it.)[/quote]
I have to disagree with this. Ryan even more than Romney has been framing the TARP issue as a matter of morality and principles, but here he is standing around with his hand out begging for the money for his constituents. Obviously he shouldn’t lie about it, but frankly this was the biggest score for Biden of the night, at least for me. Although it was really hard for me to sit and listen to Biden act like he’s the champion of the middle class when he’s the biggest whore for the credit card companies there is and the bankruptcy “reforms” he championed did more to hurt the little guy than just about any law I can think of in recent memory.
[/quote]
I’m not disagreeing with you–it was a huge score for Biden. While it makes sense that Ryan would “get his” when the money was being distributed and yet still oppose the measure as a whole, it looks bad and it’s pretty difficult to save face when you spend a lot of your time biting the hand from which you begged to be fed.
But, my point is that Ryan went with it anyway. As Biden said, he can’t show letters. Maybe I’m being cynical here, but I think a lot of politicians would’ve heard that and thought, “well he can’t prove it so I’ll deny it to the grave.” Ryan leveled, and I like that, even though I agree with Biden on the larger issue.
edited
[quote]smh23 wrote:
[quote]jjackkrash wrote:
[quote]countingbeans wrote:
[quote]smh23 wrote:
Ryan impressed me a lot when Biden brought up the bit about him requesting stimulus money. That did look bad for Ryan, justifiably or not, but instead of denying it he went with the truth. If a politician’s gut instinct is to acknowledge something that makes him look bad, especially something that can’t be proven, he is a rare politician.
[/quote]
This is a great point, and Ryan palyed it perfectly “of course I asked for the money my people wanted. That is what we are supposed to do” (not a direct quote, but rather how I heard it.)[/quote]
I have to disagree with this. Ryan even more than Romney has been framing the TARP issue as a matter of morality and principles, but here he is standing around with his hand out begging for the money for his constituents. Obviously he shouldn’t lie about it, but frankly this was the biggest score for Biden of the night, at least for me. Although it was really hard for me to sit and listen to Biden act like he’s the champion of the middle class when he’s the biggest whore for the credit card companies there is and the bankruptcy “reforms” he championed did more to hurt the little guy than just about any law I can think of in recent memory.
[/quote]
I’m not disagreeing with you–it was a huge score for Biden. While it makes sense that Ryan would “get his” when the money was being distributed and yet still oppose the measure as a whole, it looks bad and it’s pretty difficult to save face when you spend a lot of your time biting the hand from which you begged to be fed.
But, my point is that Ryan went with it anyway. As Biden said, he can’t show letters. Maybe I’m being cynical here, but I think a lot of politicians would’ve heard that and thought, “well he can’t prove it so I’ll deny it to the grave.” Ryan leveled, and I like that, even though I agree with Biden on the larger issue.
edited[/quote]
Well, begged is a strong word, lol. Not even close to begging.
And I’ve had a state rep write me a letter. You ask them, and they pretty much do it.
It would have made him a shit leader to NOT write the letters if his people wanted the $.
[quote]smh23 wrote:
[quote]jjackkrash wrote:
[quote]countingbeans wrote:
[quote]smh23 wrote:
Ryan impressed me a lot when Biden brought up the bit about him requesting stimulus money. That did look bad for Ryan, justifiably or not, but instead of denying it he went with the truth. If a politician’s gut instinct is to acknowledge something that makes him look bad, especially something that can’t be proven, he is a rare politician.
[/quote]
This is a great point, and Ryan palyed it perfectly “of course I asked for the money my people wanted. That is what we are supposed to do” (not a direct quote, but rather how I heard it.)[/quote]
I have to disagree with this. Ryan even more than Romney has been framing the TARP issue as a matter of morality and principles, but here he is standing around with his hand out begging for the money for his constituents. Obviously he shouldn’t lie about it, but frankly this was the biggest score for Biden of the night, at least for me. Although it was really hard for me to sit and listen to Biden act like he’s the champion of the middle class when he’s the biggest whore for the credit card companies there is and the bankruptcy “reforms” he championed did more to hurt the little guy than just about any law I can think of in recent memory.
[/quote]
I’m not disagreeing with you–it was a huge score for Biden. While it makes sense that Ryan would “get his” when the money was being distributed and yet still oppose the measure as a whole, it looks bad and it’s pretty difficult to save face when you spend a lot of your time biting the hand from which you begged to be fed.
But, my point is that Ryan went with it anyway. As Biden said, he can’t show letters. Maybe I’m being cynical here, but I think a lot of politicians would’ve heard that and thought, “well he can’t prove it so I’ll deny it to the grave.” Ryan leveled, and I like that, even though I agree with Biden on the larger issue.
edited[/quote]
That was one of about 5 or so missed opportunities by Ryan. He should have said “yes I asked you for some stimulus money but I didn’t ask you to waste the tax payers money by throwing away 90 billion dollars on green power that never materialized.”
No question his youth and debate inexperience showed last night. But as I said he did well enough to not allow the momentum that Romney created by crushing Obama in the first debate to slow down.
[quote]countingbeans wrote:
[quote]smh23 wrote:
[quote]jjackkrash wrote:
[quote]countingbeans wrote:
[quote]smh23 wrote:
Ryan impressed me a lot when Biden brought up the bit about him requesting stimulus money. That did look bad for Ryan, justifiably or not, but instead of denying it he went with the truth. If a politician’s gut instinct is to acknowledge something that makes him look bad, especially something that can’t be proven, he is a rare politician.
[/quote]
This is a great point, and Ryan palyed it perfectly “of course I asked for the money my people wanted. That is what we are supposed to do” (not a direct quote, but rather how I heard it.)[/quote]
I have to disagree with this. Ryan even more than Romney has been framing the TARP issue as a matter of morality and principles, but here he is standing around with his hand out begging for the money for his constituents. Obviously he shouldn’t lie about it, but frankly this was the biggest score for Biden of the night, at least for me. Although it was really hard for me to sit and listen to Biden act like he’s the champion of the middle class when he’s the biggest whore for the credit card companies there is and the bankruptcy “reforms” he championed did more to hurt the little guy than just about any law I can think of in recent memory.
[/quote]
I’m not disagreeing with you–it was a huge score for Biden. While it makes sense that Ryan would “get his” when the money was being distributed and yet still oppose the measure as a whole, it looks bad and it’s pretty difficult to save face when you spend a lot of your time biting the hand from which you begged to be fed.
But, my point is that Ryan went with it anyway. As Biden said, he can’t show letters. Maybe I’m being cynical here, but I think a lot of politicians would’ve heard that and thought, “well he can’t prove it so I’ll deny it to the grave.” Ryan leveled, and I like that, even though I agree with Biden on the larger issue.
edited[/quote]
Well, begged is a strong word, lol. Not even close to begging.
And I’ve had a state rep write me a letter. You ask them, and they pretty much do it.
It would have made him a shit leader to NOT write the letters if his people wanted the $.[/quote]
Begged is a strong word. Retracted.
Still, the point goes to Biden on that one. I know Ryan’s actions make sense. But in a debate, when you can say “you asked for stimulus money” right after the guy derides the stimulus, you re scoring a point, cheap or not.
[quote]smh23 wrote:
Still, the point goes to Biden on that one. I know Ryan’s actions make sense. But in a debate, when you can say “you asked for stimulus money” right after the guy derides the stimulus, you re scoring a point, cheap or not.[/quote]
Yeah, you are right. Biden certainly got the win their for sure.
there there there there there there there there
[quote]countingbeans wrote:
there there there there there there there there[/quote]
hahahaha