Biden more confident but excessively rude. He finally got control of his randomly smirking face very late in the game.
Ryan really wasn’t bad but lacked authority, especially on foreign policy. He did have a mastery of many details about Afghanistan, but there’s no denying that Biden was telling people what they wanted here about turning the war over to Afghan security forces.
Biden blew his confidence advantage–which made his substance seemed more substantial–through his un-vice-presidential style. Some say he was buffoonish. That’s an exaggeration, but he was pretty strange.
You gotta love Ryan for his honest audacity on the Catholic issue. And he was pretty good on judicial restraint. But he didn’t have the authority to drive home the religious freedom issue.
Overall effect: Both bases energized a bit. Biden seems to have made Democrats proud of their ticket again. So Joe, at least, contributed to stopping bleeding that was probably already stopped.
The CNBC poll gave Ryan a 20% victory. The CNN poll was only a 4% difference in Ryan’s favor. Each side thought its guy won–very unlike the presidential debate.
Big disappointment: Ryan no longer seems to add anything to the ticket. Those who recommended the dumping of Romney in favor of Ryan were way wrong.
Well, maybe he does add one thing: Despite his allegedly unpopular views on “women’s health,” women rated Ryan highly.
The same goes for those who wanted to dump Biden. After all, he does have a certain charm and performed better than his boss.
October 11th, 2012 | 11:57 pm
The “Catholic” question was handled by Biden with a classic replay of the Cuomo/Kennedy at Houston gambit.
Biden at once said “My religion defines who I am,” and at the same time said his beliefs will not in any way be allowed to “impose” upon others in the capacity of his job, namely with regard to pro-life issues. What you have there is an “inner self” still agrees with Catholicism, and an “outer self” that agrees and acts in contradiction to it. That’s a fundamentally non-Catholic anthropology, it’s straight out of Luther. A real Catholic would say that we don’t have divided selves, Biden is responsible for his whole life, and if he means what he says about his private beliefs his conscience should haunt him about the decisions he alienates from it.
Archbishop Chaput has a much more nuanced view on all these matters than I do, I’m just shooting my mouth off on this issue. But I’ll stand by the fact that there’s something fundamentally wrong with Biden’s view of his Catholic beliefs.
October 12th, 2012 | 12:43 am
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October 12th, 2012 | 8:37 am
I’m incapable of judging that thing because I just can’t conceive of why anyone takes Slow Joe seriously. It’s truly a sign of a decadent society that someone like him isn’t laughed off stage.
Well, no one cares about VPs anyway, which I guess is why it’s the perfect job for Joe…
October 12th, 2012 | 9:00 am
I did fear that Ryan’s youth would hurt his performance, at least as far as ethos goes. Alas.
October 12th, 2012 | 10:59 am
biden says in effect that “i personally believe killing babies at week 20 of gestation is unjust killing. but i’m not going to impose the fact that i believe it’s unjust killing on you.”
does this even make sense? if you think it’s unjust killing, then the obvious thing to do is to protest it vehemently. why wouldn’t you?
notice the question shifting from “is it unjust killing?” to the inane “what would i do in a pluralistic society?” good grief, vp.
October 12th, 2012 | 11:50 am
The reason that Biden finally got control of his smirking face late in the game was because he thought as I did that, he scored a credible point about Afganistan. Previous to that he fearfully thought rightly that this young nice young man Ryan was going to completly outclass him.
October 12th, 2012 | 12:00 pm
Biden did seem more “Protestant” (and effective) in respecting the individual right of conscience, and in a way that was consistent with Obama’s “above my pay grade” argument. Other than mentioning the whole unelected judges thing, Ryan didn’t tell us that the debate over abortion ought to continue in the states. You might even say Biden’s characterization of a Romney/Ryan administration that would appoint Borkian judges who would “outlaw” abortion kind of stuck.
On a lighter note, did anyone else notice the bruises from Biden’s botox injections my wife pointed out to me? Scary stuff.
October 12th, 2012 | 2:31 pm
Debate prep teams might take notice to the point Biden made regarding the federal funds letter where Ryan wanted a share for his constituents. Ryan might have used former American league manager Sparky Anderson’s philosophy. Sparky didn’t believe in his league’s designated batter rule. But just because he didn’t believe in that rule, he saw no reason to not becoming the best at stratagies that would work for the team in a winning way within that rule
October 13th, 2012 | 1:50 am
Biden did do well with the funding letter and defusing any criticism of the stimulus. In general, he was on the offensive most of the night. Anyone who hear the debate on the radio must have thought he was winning.
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