No, this guy.
Why is laughing disrespectful and baldfaced lying not?
Intrade isn’t impressed either way. Obama remains between 60-63%.
Contrast that to the 1st debate, where Obama’s numbers plummeted the longer the debate went on.
I enjoyed that Biden called Ryan on the bullshit, I didn’t care for his flippant attitude if only because this wasn’t really the proper venue for it. I thought that Ryan mostly stuck to the standard talking points, but that he managed to sufficiently trip over his own rope.
But I really don’t think any of that is going to make a difference. It’s a VP debate, it honestly doesn’t matter. The media will be all over it for a couple of days, but by the time Tuesday rolls around it’ll be forgotten in favor of the real debate starring the real candidates. Kind of a shame honestly, I really enjoyed the debate. At the very least it had more substance than the first debate.
Huh. When I voted it was like 63/37 to Biden. Then I went to the store and came back and now they’re saying Ryan won.
Whatever.
The online poll isn’t the same as their scientific poll.
If Ryan opened his mouth Biden laughed that was a jackass move. Rebuttal like a grown man, call him on his lie do not act like a dick. I am not prudish by any means, but I know enough about professional behavior… and Biden failed.
Who cares what Intrade thinks?
EDIT: I just asked my dog who won the debate. He barked twice, and it kind of sounded like Paul, Paul! My dog thinks Ryan won the debate, I’m assuming. What does this mean for the viability of the Obama campaign? Only time will tell.
It’s a real poll. What you voted in was an “online poll”. Those exist just to drive traffic and have no value whatsoever.
Obama supporter through and through, but I thought Biden came off as a whiny, petulant child. I can absolutely understand the thinking that, if you assume both sides are lying (since all politicians do, right?), Ryan came off a whole lot better. And I didn’t see any decisive Biden victory (this thread is amazing in its slant), which gives Ryan the benefit of the tie, if anything.
Though honestly, if I had to answer as much blatant BS as Biden was, I would have come off a whole lot worse than he did. So a hearty consolation clap to him.
Ah, gotcha.
I like Joe Biden (in fact much more so than B. Obama) and I thought that his grinning mug made him look like a real Class “A” Asshole tonight, even though I generally agreed with the basic points that he was trying to make…
I think it’s an interesting insight into the public perception of the state of the race. I hardly think it’s as useless as some folks here do. I think it’s one piece of information out of many. If I were watching Intrade during last week’s debates and saw Obama’s numbers crashing, I would assume there was some serious carnage taking place, as there apparently was.
My husband and I puzzled this one out during slow moments in the debate, and it’s Alfred E. Neuman, fittingly the mascot for Mad magazine.
I thought Biden did a bang-up job in the debate. I knew the right would immediately start whining about his grinning and outright laughter, but I found that Biden laughed at the same things that made me laugh so it just seemed natural to me. A more subtle, less outspoken person than Biden might just have let a little smile sneak out, but Joe Biden has never represented himself as subtle or diplomatic. His behavior was exactly in line with his normal personality. Republicans like Joe’s relative lack of filtering when it leads to “gaffes” they can make fun of; they don’t like it so much when it’s their boy drawing the mockery.
Obviously it is time for Jim Lehrer to step out of the moderating business, especially after watching this debate and seeing how it should be done. Granted, the format made this one a bit easier to moderate, but I liked that she was willing to question both candidates when she didn’t get a clear answer to the question or felt follow-up was needed.
Gotta admit I’m surprised. I thought Biden seemed authoritative and knowledgeable and pretty well took it to Ryan. I was disappointed in Ryan and thought the debate would be pretty much the opposite of what it was. But most of the network coverage I’ve been seeing and the polls they’re looking at are showing it much closer than I thought. Maybe old Joe overplayed his hand. He did seem to back off toward the end and adopt a more conciliatory though still commanding tone, and I wondered at the time whether he’d gotten a signal of some sort to back off. I remember when Mondale nailed Ronald Reagan when Reagan tried his “There you go again” line that worked so well against Carter and Mondale was waiting with a withering rebuttal. Reagan sort of stammered around looking grandfatherly and picked on and it backfired on Mondale pretty badly. Maybe the same kind of thing here. Perhaps Romney did the better job of walking the aggressive line without coming off a bully (to most) whereas Biden took it too far.
The cartoonish Screech Powers?
Both of them did creditable jobs at pitching to their bases. The undecided voter moment by moment rating shown on CNN reversed the trend of the presidential debate, with women generally approving Ryan over Biden and men approving Biden over Ryan. I can’t figure that out at all.
Biden’s performance mostly showed why Obama couldn’t react the same way in the first debate. If he had interrupted and laughed and called malarky, the dip in the poll numbers would have looked like an abyss. He might in the next debate be a bit more active in contradicting Romney but I doubt you’ll see more than that.
A tie favors the incumbent in normal times. This one wasn’t normal but the outcome is the same. Biden had to obviously and manifestly not lose in the way Obama was seen to. Not losing was all-important. A clear win would be have helpful for their side, but a tie still derails the narrative of Obama being a loser. It probably does a bit more, since the media now have a new narrative to paw over: is Ryan - and by extension Romney and the Republicans - lying? The right will scream bias, no doubt, but given a tie and given that they have to obsess over something for the next week, it’s the logical follow-up that fits their format of having people from each side sit there and mindlessly contradict the other. This gives a slight edge to Obama in the post-debate period.
Intrade and 538, including the now-cast, all put Obama’s chances back in the 60’s. Obama has spent about five months out of the year near 60% on Intrade. That’s probably about where it should be. Everything else is like trying to measure the momentum of a team on a hot run making the playoffs. Once the playoffs start, everybody is back to 0-0, and the better team for the opponent will win, not the hottest team.
Me! What ever happened to respecting the moderator and the rules of the debate.
I think I’ve put my finger on why Biden’s smirking and laughing was so off-putting to me.
America is in trouble right now. And one of the biggest reasons why is because politicians on both sides of the aisle refuse to negotiate, consider the other side, and form any kind of compromise on any issue. Clinton, Reagan, and Romney in Massachusetts learned how to work with opposing sides to get shit done. Everyone needs to remember that, however horrible you think the other side is, both parties are at around 50% of the country. So compromise is necessary.
Biden’s behavior was like someone’s Facebook “debate” where they’re just calling the other guy an asshole. No substance, no thoughtful consideration, just smirking and shaking his head. That’s not going to fly in a country where 50% of the people disagree with you. And it makes it very, very clear that you have no interest in working with them. So why wouldnt their response be “fuck you”?
IMO, women tend not to like it when men are overbearing. Men can perceive that as assertiveness or strength and therefore as a positive.
Plus Ryan is young, fit, and, presumably, attractive. 