Vice Presidential candidate debate commentary/watch thread

[Major Lima Charlie]

Chibi Halo

Major Lima Charlie

azulmagia

Major Lima Charlie

He's not pulling his punches. Jeebus.

I think Obama was caught askew by Romney choosing just that moment to flip-flop yet again.

Damn Biden's doing good. For once the MSM is helping, by their pundits puffing up Ryan beyond the reality of Ryan. So now he must come down to Earth. The irony.

I'm loving how Biden grins like a shark every time he gets ready to go on the offensive. Ryan has a great poker face, but that shark grin is awesome.

That shark grin is a good indicator of just where the fact checkers need to start checking facts. Every time Ryan goes on fear mongering or spewing out half truths or not actually answering the question (I'm getting the feeling he was told to tell stories that puff up Romney when he can't give the answer to the questions she's asking) Biden starts to smile and nearly chuckle.

And you know, not once during this debate so far has Ryan actually looked at the camera and addressed the people he's trying to convince. At least three times when he was addressing the issue of Social Security and Medicare did Biden look directly at the camera and address the people watching the debate and the people in the auditorium at that college. That's one thing that people said Obama failed to do and I think if Ryan had to look at the people he wouldn't be able to give his straight from a script styled answers. They're too polished and too rehearsed and too slick that it doesn't sound like he really means anything he says. Just once Ryan look at us and talk to us not the poor debate moderator. You're not trying to convince her to vote for you you're trying to convince the undecided voter. You're trying to convince CNN's scrolling green and yellow lines so talk directly to them you Cheesehead.

Oh, I know.

I thought the camera glances were neat. Cheesy as hell, but still neat.

[Chibi Halo]

Major Lima Charlie

Oh, I know.

I thought the camera glances were neat. Cheesy as hell, but still neat.

That's Biden's thing. You may not like what he's saying but he'll tell it to you straight and he won't do the run around. When he looks at the camera you know he's getting serious.

[azulmagia]

Biden mentioned the 47%.

[Major Lima Charlie]

azulmagia

Biden mentioned the 47%.

A few times, even, and with pretty good timing.

[Maryhl]

Student held his own against the master. Still, he has much to learn.

[azulmagia]

Major Lima Charlie

azulmagia

Biden mentioned the 47%.

A few times, even, and with pretty good timing.

I hope Ryan came off as a self-righteous snake oil peddler.

The road to GOP return to the White House depends on a bridge called "credibility". Democrats have to destroy that bridge. To assess how well Biden did, we have to evaluate how well Biden did in bombing that bridge.

[DarkCloudInc]

Wow, I missed a lot of great stuff... I'll have to catch the recap sometime

[Chibi Halo]

Major Lima Charlie

azulmagia

Biden mentioned the 47%.

A few times, even, and with pretty good timing.

And he spelled out just who is in that 47% that Romney said is dodging tax paying. He mentioned the active military (which was pretty much a don't call my son a tax dodger play) some of the people Romney so very much doesn't realize that they're exempt from paying federal taxes while serving because Romney likes to think that 47% are all out of work and sponging off the Federal government when they're not.

@ Topic: I love how when mentioning the whole "Our Navy is going to be so small it'll be 1916 small" Ryan left out the whole big bit that Romney is so touting around lately about saying how he'll order fifteen new warships and three submarines a year each year he's in office without saying how he's going to pay for them because he knows he can't answer that question at all. Unless I missed something when I started to listen to baseball and football while trying to read the closed captioning on my folk's television and he did mention the fifteen new Naval ships a year along with three new submarines and never said how in the hell they expect to pay for them.

[agrab0ekim]

thought it was a tie. Biden clearly won on facts and what I want in a veep, but I could not stand the childish behavior (the staring and blank looks were okay, as those are shock, but laughing and the grin)

[agrab0ekim]

Also,
How did Ryan's glass of water get refilled?? He should win on the basis of that alone...

[azulmagia]

agrab0ekim

Also,
How did Ryan's glass of water get refilled?? He should win on the basis of that alone...

I can only assume it was his own piss.

And let's see if the CNN debate poll is exclusively comprised of Southern whites over 50.

[Kokiri Prodigy]

The car crash thing was way out of line. Ryan's a petty one.

[Chibi Halo]

Kokiri Prodigy

The car crash thing was way out of line. Ryan's a petty one.

That was their tactic in order to do two things. First, it was to make Romney look like someone who actually gives a damn about people not because he has to, IE the years he was "elected" to be the "bishop" of his local Mormon church in Mass., but because he wants to. Second, it was to force Biden to retell the story of the tragic accident that took his wife and baby daughter from him and almost left him with no family at all. It was all designed to make Biden break down over that and make Romney look good while giving the conservative press the "Boo hoo you lost your wife and daughter we're tired of hearing that sob story over and over from the Vice President" line of attack. It was pure pandering to the base and the conservative press.

Ryan needs to stop being a slick well rehearsed actor and start actually answering the questions people ask him. Oh wait, he can't because he doesn't actually have anything other than buzzwords, I'm the world's sexiest Cheesehead, and Romney buttkissery.

[DarkCloudInc]

I finally got around to watching it. It really was quite entertaining.

My perspective on Biden has changed, the old guy similar to the picture on the first page, "Let's get it on son!"

My perspective on Ryan remains the same, he looks like a younger Tony Horton from P90X, hammering you with odd phrases consistently through the regimen.

[METALFumasu]

Demon Kagerou

Student held his own against the master. Still, he has much to learn.

Indeed.

Honestly, I have to say it was a tie. Biden was Biden, and he did what he had to do what Obama's apparently incapable of doing: attack attack attack (see 47% remark). Ryan managed to hold his own against a veteran debater despite having little experience with political debates and getting interrupted by Biden again and again.

I could care less about Biden's animated facial expressions. We already knew that he's a terrible poker player. But ffs Biden, let Ryan finish speaking before you go on offense. I seriously wanted to reach through the TV at one point during the debate, bitchslap Biden, and tell him to sit down, shut up, and wait his turn to speak. I don't care if Paul Ryan was lying through his teeth, Biden should have just let Ryan finish and then attacked (he would've had more stuff to attack if he waited).

It was a good debate. Partisans on both sides are now energized (God help us all), and people like myself who are more inclined toward the center got to see a rather entertaining political debate between two living, breathing caricatures.
Interesting note: when someone pointed out Ryan's widow's peak, for some reason I instantly imagined Ryan as Vegeta.

Will the VP debate have any impact on the election, and how will it affect the importance of the debate next Tuesday?

As the Zen Master says, "We'll see."