Sorry, but I believe you’re wrong. Voters do like confidence; history strongly suggests they react very poorly to rudeness. Al Gore’s 2000 sigh-fest was not well received despite his having most of the facts on his side.
Of course, interrupting and laughing wasn’t all Biden did; he attacked very effectively at times and seemed both confident and passionate when presenting his position. Ryan seemed reasonably confident as well, though, so that’s why the polls suggest it was a slim win for Biden at most. I think Biden won this one by a point; he beat Ryan on seeming more passionate and charismatic, plus Ryan flagged towards the end and became repetetive. He loses a point for the rudeness.
I’m not taking sides, I’m just pointing out it was not a massacre. Biden seems to have won, but not by enough. Obama needs to win Debates 2 and 3.
And how PAINFULLY out of depth the high school debater boy was when he insisted that American Troops should be in the “most dangerous” part of Afghanistan and Joe was incredulous: oh yeah have the Afghans just avoid responsibility. Send THEIR trained people in, not our guys. 2014 can’t come soon enough.
Yet again, a phony argument about liberal media bias. Take any story that you think has national importance, no matter how trivial, and when it’s not front page news on every media outlet in the country, well, there you go, liberal media bias. :rolleyes:
Biden’s job was to excite the base, not win over independents (though I believe he was successful with both points). VP debates don’t really matter and by the time Romney and Obama take the stage on Tuesday, nobody will be talking about last nights debate. Obama supporters were down in the dumps after the 1st debate, and Biden fired them up again. From what I’m hearing from other Obama supporters, I’d say he was massively successful.
Our conservative posters are fitting in nicely with the predictions of the more reliable pundits: when you can’t attack the substance, attack the style. He smiled, he laughed, but he scored major points in many areas.
Termination of pregnancies caused by rape is emergency medical care as far as I’m concerned.
Here’s the thing, Ryan didn’t say he had a problem with a rape exception for federal funding of abortion, so that’s a different argument. Ryan was fine with a rape exception, he just wanted to change the word “rape” to “forcible rape.” He has refused to explain what the difference is, but clearly, that is not the kind of mentality which is going to ingratiate himself to women, particularly since he teamed up with Todd “legitimate rape” Akin on that change.
If Ryan doesn’t want a rape exception, then let him say that. That’s not what he said, though, so it’s not an argument that’s of any relevance to what he was trying to do.
I don’t think there’s any margin that could have “enough” if we were looking for an election changing debate. No one is going to vote based on this debate but it showed the Democrats (and Democratically sympathetic independents) that Camp Obama has answers and responses for the GOP attacks and plans. Obama failed to project that last time and left people feeling wanting. Now they feel like the material is there and it’s good material, it just remains to be seen if Obama can deliver it on the presidential campaign stage.
Laughing is not a rebuttal. The proper way to deal with lies or stupid arguments is to rip them apart rhetorically.
I understand that Biden isn’t in Ryan’s league as a debater, so he had to settle for the next best thing. Make SMDB posters with “Lib” in their username excited. Mission accomplished.
Come on. I freely admitted Obama sucked major ass in his first debate. Just admit that your boy didn’t measure up last night. Ryan should always be on time now, because he got his clock cleaned last night. What’s the difference between Paul Ryan and Sarah Palin? Lipstick.
You admitted in this very thread that the debate was either a tie or a Biden win. If Biden “isn’t in Ryan’s league as a debater”, was he roided up last night or something?
Knowing what happened to Battlin’ Joe’s family right after he was elected Senator, my question is that when Paul “Out of His League” Ryan brought up how Romney is empathetic because of the two paralyzed kids, did the people in charge of prepping Ryan for the debate
a) Walk out thinking “I can’t believe he went there.”
or
b) Were immediately fired for thinking that was a good tactic.
Biden’s reply was a perfect example of someone who has been through what he’s been though. When you’ve been in the shit, you don’t talk about the shit. If you’ve been through it you know what it’s like without talking about it and if you’ve never been through it you’ll never understand no matter what I say.
About that same time Ryan said
which Biden immediately laughs and says
Biden should have followed up with a, “Pwned you li’l bitch.” If you want to go after Biden and his misstatements how about, “At least Mitt Romney did not steal his 47% line from Neil Kinnock. He’s an original. How’d ja like dem apples!”
Look, I know that Paul Ryan was a better VP choice than Sarah Palin, but seriously guys - can’t you set the bar a little higher?
Seems to me the moderator made a pretty shrewd choice. Rather than try to enforce unenforceable rules, she opted to cut some slack and ride herd in a more general way. She displayed a deft touch in that regard, but there was no way she was going to control things to the degree required in a formal debate.
And she used lady power. She didn’t try to assert dominance over two testosterone impaired combatants, she simply let it be known that if they didn’t behave, she might be forced to disapprove. Sexist? Maybe. But it worked.
