In a few minutes, Vice President Joe Biden and Republican candidate Paul Ryan will debate in Danville, Kentucky. I will update this post later with highlights. Meanwhile, share any comments about the debate or the presidential race generally in this thread.
I’ve been watching the third debate between Leonard Boswell and Tom Latham on Iowa Public Television tonight. You can use this thread for comments about the Congressional candidates’ debates.
UPDATE: Added a few thoughts after the jump.
I had to step out of the room for the last half-hour of the debate, so will need to watch the rerun later.
General impression: Biden was aggressive and relentless, fact-checking Ryan frequently and smirking or chuckling during many of Ryan’s answers. It was a huge contrast to his demeanor during his 2008 debate against Sarah Palin, when he bent over backwards not to appear overbearing.
Republicans have been whining about the vice president’s “rude” behavior, and many of the beltway commentators agree. But this was certainly planned to fire up the Democratic base and communicate to viewers his contempt for Ryan’s lies.
I loved a lot of Biden’s lines (“Their ideas are old, and their ideas are bad.”) I have no idea whether his delivery undermined his message with swing voters. CNN’s focus group of undecideds seemed to be evenly split on who won.
When Biden brought up Romney’s comments about the 47 percent, Ryan had a decent rehearsed reply: “I think the vice president very well knows that sometimes the words don’t come out of your mouth the right way.” Biden immediately shot back, but I always say what I mean, and so did Romney.
The CBS snap poll shows that 50 percent of respondents thought Biden won, 31 percent thought Ryan won, and 19 percent thought it was a tie.
I doubt the Romney campaign wanted Ryan to end up in the position of defending Social Security privatization. The Obama campaign would be crazy not to exploit that part of the debate.
I thought Ryan came across as unprepared and uninformed on some of the foreign policy questions. I couldn’t believe he told a story involving a car crash with Biden (whose first wife and baby daughter died in a car accident) sitting right there. I know his point was to show how generous Romney is, but his debate coaches should have prepped him with a different story.
UPDATE: CNN’s snap poll has a result within the margin of error: 48 percent of respondents thought Ryan won, 44 percent thought Biden won.
The full results from the CNN poll are here (pdf).
SECOND UPDATE: The sample for the CBS poll was uncommitted voters.
Both Biden and Ryan gained ground on relatability and knowledge. The percentage of voters who say they believe they can relate to Biden spiked from 34 percent before the debate to 55 percent; 48 percent think Ryan is relatable, up from 31 percent before the debate. Meanwhile, after watching the two candidates debate, 85 percent of those polled think Biden is knowledgeable about the issues; 75 percent say that about Ryan.
Ryan, though, faced a loss among voters’ opinions of which candidate would be an effective president, if necessary. Before the debate, he led Biden 45 percent to 39 percent; after the debate, 56 percent of those polled said Biden would be an effective president, with fewer – 49 percent–saying the same about Ryan.
THIRD UPDATE: Republican politicians and commentators are harping on Biden’s laughter during the debate, suggesting he was making fun of serious problems like unemployment (rather than mocking Ryan’s spin). In 2000 they turned George W. Bush’s first debate against Al Gore from a loss (according to polls taken immediately after the debate) to a win by making Gore’s sighs a big topic of pundit conversation for several days afterwards.
I’ve seen lots of Republicans whine about moderator Martha Raddatz too. I thought she did a good job keeping the candidates on track, and a lot of journalists agreed.
Here are links to debate fact-checks by CBS News, ABC News, NBC News, FactCheck.org, Associated Press reporters, and PolitiFact.
13 Comments
CNN Poll
CNN reporting their poll showing 48% Ryan vs. 44% Biden, for a slight Ryan advantage.
mirage Thu 11 Oct 10:22 PM
Six Weeks, Six Votes Debate recap
I can’t imagine how Thursday night’s debate could have gone worse for Joe Biden and the Democratic ticket.
Biden’s condescension, laughter, rambling and constant interruptions were repulsive to the few remaining swing voters. It seemed almost as if Biden were overcompensating for Barack Obama’s perceived drowsiness in the first debate.
In contrast, Paul Ryan was disciplined in his message and clear in his delivery. Ryan’s few zingers – “Mr. Vice President, I know you’re under a lot of duress” – struck home with cold precision.
Defensive in the critical first half-hour, Biden evaded the very first question from ABC’s Martha Raddatz on the attack that killed the Libyan ambassador, giving a rambling recital of the Administration’s foreign policy accomplishments but never actually addressing the subject of her inquiry.
Ryan gave a clear, well-articulated argument for entitlement reform. “Medicare and Social Security are going bankrupt. These are indisputable facts,” he said. I could almost smell the message-testing.
Biden mounted a semi-coherent defense, citing “vouchers” and making a straw man argument about the Bush proposal to privatize Social Security.
“Barack Obama, four years ago, running for president, said if you don’t have any fresh ideas, use stale tactics to scare voters,” Ryan replied.
It was Ryan’s most insidious and effective attack, one that he repeated when moderator Raddatz asked a tough question about the vicious political smears both campaigns have employed: “At the end of the day, are you ever embarrassed by the tone?”
“You have a president who ran for president four years ago promising hope and change who has now turned his campaign into attack, blame and defame,” Ryan said. By underscoring the pivot in the Obama camp’s tactics, he was able to absolve his own side of its culpability in the unceasingly negative campaign environment.
Kudos to Raddatz, who asked a string of tough, relevant questions as moderator and held the candidates to account. Raddatz challenged the Romney ticket to account on its shifting abortion position and its ill-considered comments during the crisis that culminated in the death of the ambassador to Libya. She posed equally tough questions to Biden, asking him to explain the Obama side’s prediction of cutting unemployment to under 6% if the 2009 stimulus package passed. The unemployment rate languished above 8% and only days ago fell to 7.8%.
I found myself dreading the moment when Raddatz would have to ask the sitting vice president stop interrupting the challenger, but fortunately for the Democrats it never came to that, though it wouldn’t have been out the bounds of plausibility.
Biden’s best moment came at the tail end of the debate, when he ably rebutted Ryan’s position on abortion. “I refuse to impose it on equally devout Christians and Muslims and Jews,” Biden said. “I just refuse to impose that on others.”
The bottom line, though, is that politics is a sales job. Paul Ryan was by far the better salesman tonight.
UPDATE: I try to write my debate reactions without looking at anyone else’s appraisal. I was wildly out of step with the chatteratti in my assessment of the first debate. For this one, pundit reactions are all over the map, according to the Huffington Post.
sixweekssixvotes Thu 11 Oct 11:46 PM
Rude, Aggressive Biden
As you point out, the fiery Joe we saw tonight was certainly planned by the Democratic brain trust to fire the base. Do you think that was an error? I think presidential campaigns are decided in the middle still and doubt the “turn out the base at all costs!” strategy on principle. I thought it was a huge blunder.
sixweekssixvotes Thu 11 Oct 11:49 PM
the CBS poll
of uncommitted voters showed better results for Biden than for Ryan. I thought Biden was generally on point and very clear, even if a little aggressive with his interruptions. No doubt a lot of viewers saw it the way you did, but I don’t see the strategy as flawed–he needed to hold Ryan accountable.
desmoinesdem Fri 12 Oct 6:58 AM
"turn out the base"
Note: I did not watch debate. That said, I was puzzled to read about this strategy last night across various sites. I think it’s a mistake.
The “Dem base” voters that Obama/Team Dem need are NOT sitting around waiting to be “fired up” by Joe Biden of all people.
And if yesterday’s FL poll is any indication, Romney is running right up the middle. Now Politico is babbling about Romney ahead in Maine’s 2nd CD with the possibility of picking up an ECV.
Disclaimer: I have been pessimistic about the general strategy of “defining Romney” from day one. His success in the first debate was less about the back-and-forth and more about his presenting as an “acceptable” alternative. Second, for whatever reason, the petulance that was implied by Eastwood’s skit manifested itself in Obama’s body language — not a coincidence that this week’s New Yorker cover is Romney debating a chair. I happen to agree w/ dmd that Obama’s debate performance was not that bad. What was problematic is that TeamO was trying to sell a very negative message about “the other guy,” so showing up as the sterling and safe bet was mandatory. I’m not sure a snarling follow-up by VP Biden would have been my strategy at this point.
I am not very impressed with the polling this season (and the various hacks trying to sound like they they know something) and even less impressed by the lack of objective analysis by the “pundits.”
albert Fri 12 Oct 8:47 AM
VP Debate not "presidential"
I overlooked that this was a VP debate, and so perhaps less important to “look presidential” than the others. The VP seat has traditionally been an attack dog; that’s certainly what we saw last night.
I also agreed that the first debate wasn’t at all bad for Obama. I thought it was a confused scrum for the most part with no clear victor, but gave the edge to Obama.
Disagree on defining Romney early being a mistake for the Dems. I was surprised and delighted to see my party finally using admittedly slimy but muscular techniques to pre-define Romney over the summer, and even more shocked by Romney’s acquiescence to the smearing. He didn’t even fight it up until the last few weeks!
sixweekssixvotes Fri 12 Oct 10:32 AM
intentional, IMO
He didn’t even fight it up until the last few weeks!
I would compare with Dem primary ’08. Hillary ran on “inevitability” and portrayed Obama as unacceptable (“inexperienced”). Obama needed to cross the threshold of acceptability and did so while successfully criticizing Hillary as arrogant. The problem with taking it upon yourself to “define” someone is that if they don’t conform to your definition, you look a little suspect. OTOH, if you walk on the stage and conform to your opponent’s caricature of you, trouble.
I don’t care about slimy. I’m talking about the mismatch between the wife-killer and the person on stage. The nebbish vs the businessman. And I find catcalls of “Father of Obamacare, thanks Mitt” bizarre. Why do Democrats want to highlight that he’s open to health care legislation, has experience and wants to make changes to unpopular aspects of reform? Nobody cares about flip-flop because all politicians do it.
albert Fri 12 Oct 12:46 PM
definition
Interesting. I hadn’t thought of it that way before. The comparison with the Democratic primary is certainly intriguing.
sixweekssixvotes Fri 12 Oct 2:22 PM
my precinct
went about 90% for Obama-Biden in 2008. I live in one of the most O-friendly areas in the country. The Dem base is singles, younger voters, minority voters, foreign-born, etc etc, not progressive bloggers.
I was out and about last night — and this was right after a public rally for MD’s marriage equality ballot question, so one of the more politically-focused days of the year. I saw zero interest in the upcoming VP debate.
albert Fri 12 Oct 9:00 AM
Matt Taibbi
Has a fun read out today on Taegan Goddards Political Wire.
http://politicalwire.com/archi…
conservative-demo Sat 13 Oct 1:51 PM
I like Taibbi
and I don’t think for a second that Biden forgot he was on a split screen. Those laughs and smirks were meant to indicate when Ryan was spinning “a bunch of stuff.”
desmoinesdem Sat 13 Oct 4:33 PM
loved it.
I was glad to see a Democrat stand up for what he believes in and just beat the snot our of that little punk. Biden fact checked that little liar clear through the debate. It was fun on Friday morning watch fox noise try to make up excuses for Ryan.
Now I just hope Obama gets the idea in his head to stand up for him self in the next two debates with Romney.
keithnichols Sat 13 Oct 11:40 PM
wow
and to think that people here claimed that Romney was beholden to conservatives. Poor Obama. That’s really what he needs to be doing in the closing weeks: impressing progressives.
albert Sun 14 Oct 2:02 PM