Want to dialog about the debate as it happens? pt 2.

I gotta say I’m already loving this moderator so much more than Jim. She’s doing great so far.

Perhaps, after reading that, I will actually turn the TV on.

Haven’t been hearing anything that I haven’t already heard in the last 5 months.

eghhh here comes the “I just talked to a guy that…..” stories

Oh, that’s tonight? Glad I stayed home to work instead of going to my bar… I don’t think I could get as drunk as I’d have to get to listen to Paul Ryan, and still teach my classes tomorrow!

I am watching snippets but I think it seems like a better debate. Biden seems comfortable and confident and I am beginning to relax a bit.

Bidden is on the attack, pretty awesome. He seems so much more confident in speaking than he was last debate with Palin.

I don’t feel like Ryan is actually saying anything. He keeps saying our plan is to do this or this or our plan for that. Yet he hasn’t explained how exactly he wishes to accomplish any of this…

Biden is the debate star, so far. Ryan is just a kid and he doesn’t know what he’s doing.

Whew, I feel better.

Does every Republican have that smirk? Do they teach them how to make people want to slap them?

@tinyfaery My fiance and I were just wondering the same thing. That and Biden kinda looks like a cat when he smiles :P

Biden is killing me with his smiles and the faces he is making. I never had any strong feelings about him until the last year or so, but he has really grown on me a lot.
I am confused about this question being in General… I didn’t participate much in the original conversation, I’m not sure what is considered helpful/not helpful.)

@DigitalBlue honestly I wasnt really thinking about it when I put it in general and I noticed when it was too late

I love the smirks and the laughing. A jelly said that he’s coming on strong with the (Repugs’ -that’s right) bullshit detection and I agree. Obama failed to do so.

Is anyone else watching on CNN? At the bottom there is a little graph that says Undecided Voters and its split to men and women. If the line goes up into + does that mean they agree or they’re more undecided?

Oh man, Ryan’s getting beat up by the moderator….

@uberbatman it means they like what they’re hearing.

I love this! The moderator is great!

@Mariah thanks.

@janbb I know, she’s kickin ass. I wish she did the Presidential debate.

This seriously is the best thing that I’ve seen in a long time.

So how come the moderator isn’t apparently all tied up like Jim Leher was by the debate commission or whatever?

@bookish1 Maybe because the veep debate has looser rules? Either way she’s awesome.

When did Biden turn into a bad ass?

She’s got a different temperament. She’s not going to let herself be bowled over. She is determined to stay in control. It’s her debate.

I heard on NPR that Lehrer deliberately took a back seat to let them both show their stuff. But this is so much better particularly because Biden is coming on so strong.

DAMMMMNNNN Bringing out abortion for the final question….

Ugh. Is this the 70’s? The Supreme Court already decided this decades ago.

IMO No ovaries, no opinion.

…...why was it necessary to ask how their religion influences their stance? Why? Why can’t we just know where they stand on the issues? Why should I care what church they go to? Why should anyone care?
That bothers me a lot.

Biden did well. Huzzah!

@DigitalBlue I think because most pro life people are strongly influenced by religion. So she wanted to get at if that was what influenced them in their view. I do believe religion should kinda get left out though. I really like the way Biden went about answering that question.

Agreed @DigitalBlue. The biggest oppositions to abortion are religious arguments, so it’s rather important. Shouldn’t be, but it is. And Biden answered really well.

Still voting for Roseanne Barr.

Biden won that one. No doubt.

Biden did very well.

@tinyfaery

Still voting for Roseanne Barr.

I wouldn’t be surprised if there are many Obama supporters (including me), who would be pleasantly amazed if she won.

That was pretty satisfying.

Obama “lost” the debate because he was boring and passive and didn’t fight back.

Ryan “lost” this debate because both he and Biden made it abundantly clear that he is full of shit and the GOP’s policies are snake oil.

I didn’t watch the debate, but from what I’ve read here, I’d like to send major Congo rats to the moderator.

Was it like Auggie herself was the mod? ;-o

Well, not sure who you mean by Auggie, but she was great. Kept control, refused to allow the candidates to go over her or drift off topic, called out attempts to avoid answering, and just in general was great.

@uberbatman, man, Biden has always been a badass. I think he’s full of shit on a lot of IP and Internet policy, but dude’s definitely not the dumbass gaffe machine that he is caricatured as.

@Qingu Not as bad as he’s normally portrayed but I’ve never really seen him speak as confidently as he did tonight. I always kinda looked at him as someone who was really smart but just kinda sucked at public speaking.

I’m calling it. Joe won! Looks like the independents liked him, too. Huffpo had a reporter saying they had 50 indies on tap and interviewed them 30 mins and 60 mins into it, and 55% were liking Joe better.

My daughter’s peeps (she’s 16) thought Joe won, but then, she says, they like him anyway. But that doesn’t matter. I like Obama and I thought he lost. We can tell.

Also, it seems like the arguments people were expecting, the 47% and other things, were given. The other thing Joe seemed to do well is not let Ryan finish his thoughts.

Anyway, this is obviously not a poll, but it is my finger on several pulses, and I think Joe won.

The question is, will this stem the hemorrhaging of Obama’s support?

I think Joe should train O for his next debate with Romney.

If Biden won, did he do as well as Obama did badly? So what is the net score of the two. Did Biden erase the first debate enough to come out with an overall net positive? Because its not as if Ryan really did poorly tonight.

Ryan would have done well to take some courses in public speaking; he seemed a tense and rushed speaker, which I found distracting.

Learning how to comport oneself in front of a mic is paramount today. Diction, modulation, and clarity can be learned. Using these skills makes you seem more statesmanlike.

@woodcutter, I think there’s a lot to unpack. I’m not convinced that it’s a linear relationship to begin with necessarily. What I think Romney did successfully in his debate performance is motivate his own base and appeal to moderates. That enthusiasm probably explains a lot of his poll bump. A lot of Obama’s “losing” involved people in his own party pissed that he was such a softie, so there was this consensus that Obama lost which got amplified in the media.

It’s probably too soon to say much about this debate, but my view is that Ryan came off as dishonest and completely empty of ideas. I think Biden succeeded in showing that Romney’s policies are hot air. So I think the nature of this “victory” is different and possibly more meaningful to voters, at least if it has traction. Or maybe not, voters are pretty damn stupid.

”Or maybe not, voters are pretty damn stupid.” Whoa there for a second. That is subjective right? What I take away from it all with whom anyone picks is they use a different logic from a person picking someone else. Different things have different meanings to individuals and sort of smacks of elitism when I hear that. There are some things in life that some people are willing to have less of or do without completely as long as they get someone in they like and trust. That is a big deal ,that trust, and if a person identifies with someone like that ,it will weigh heavy on their decision, even though their decision may not line up with your parameters. It is still their choice none the less. Voting for convicted felons would be bad as well as “stupid” and that will never happen but voting for someone different is not bad or stupid.

I make no bones about it, I’m an elitist. I think most people are dumb shits.

I guess I could put that more delicately. I’ll quote Adlai Stevenson (?): Consider the average voter, and then think about how half of Americans are less intelligent than he is.

I think Biden kicked butt. But I wished he had asked Ryan how is it he plans to privatize social security for younger people while being able to maintain retirement payments to the retired. Social Security is going to be a mess already because there are more baby boomers than there are people going into the workforce. Not to mention with education cuts that will mean that they will also make lower income.
I think Biden had Ryan on the ropes when he mentioned his plans for cutting loop holes would mean no breaks for middle income families as well for their homes or for their childrens education.
I only wish the moderator could say one thing to candidates. Stick to the facts and you can’t wander off topic for longer than 20 seconds or you forfeit you time. Don’t waste my time with home spun stories. I don’t live next to you. That just tells me that you can be nice to your neighbor. I want the facts about things that will affect my life and those I care about and the whole nation. If you don’t have and answer than say you don’t have one and go on to the next question.

Biden spoke passionately and seemingly from the heart, and he didn’t appear to have to pluck every word out of a filtration system with a pair of tweezers like his predecessors of a week ago. Neither did he sound rehearsed (even though he must have been), whereas his opponent sounded like he was working from a script, in one instance repeating a series of points almost word for word as if executing a subroutine.

Joe did laugh a lot, but he didn’t smirk condescendingly. He did not act condescending. Scornful, yes, but not superior. Ryan seemed to have practiced that supercilious expression for so long that he couldn’t lose it and look sincere for two minutes together.

I thought this performance was as much a brawl as a debate, with the moderator right there in the thick of it. Hugely entertaining.

When it came down to the end, I was coaxing Biden aloud just like a sports fan, urging him just to answer the question on religion and abortion and not try to respond to Ryan. That’s exactly what he did, and I thought he handled it extremely well.

Having not seen either of the debates so far, I have to say that I love these threads. I feel like I was there. Thanks, jellies!

@Jeruba LOL, I thought the same thing. I felt I was watching a boxing match and Ryan got KO!
Funny thing though. Apparently CNN polls say that Ryan won the battle and that women didn’t like Bidens bullying. They must’ve polled people who didn’t actually watch.

CNN polled all voters, not undecideds, and oversampled Republicans.

I think it is fair to assume that Republicans will automatically stand behind their guy in a way that Democrats did not stand behind Obama, though, because that’s what Republicans do. Doubly so because Ryan embodied everything the GOP base stands for.

Flatlines _________________________

PADDLES!!!!!
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I knew you guys were doing this during the speech! Rick and I watched it. Biden won, hands down, IMO, just as Obama lost, hands down last week (much as I hate to say it :)

Biden conveyed that Ryan’s ideologies were so simplistic that he had no IDEA what to expect as a VP—That he would be as useless as a third-grader as a hard-decision maker.

One of my favorites was when they were talking about Middle Eastern policy. Ryan was rambling on about something when Biden snapped “Are you saying “WAR”?!” That left Ryan non-plussed…because he doesn’t know WHAT he’s saying.

Ryan was a child, trying to play with the big boys.

@Dutchess_III Ah! Now I understand why my arms are so tired. :)

Well, you saved my life @Pandora! Thanks a lot man!

During the VP debate I also took the opportunity to imagine each of those men as president.

I had no difficulty picturing Joe at the podium while “Hail to the Chief” plays, although if you had asked me about that prior to this debate, I might have glanced down and shaken my head ever so slightly, not to say “no” but rather to say “uh-oh, I sure hope not.” Now I’m thinking that he has the manner of some of our more colorful (and popular) presidents of the past, before TV and long before PC, and in his VP role he actually does make a nice counterpart to the president. There’s a kind of yin and yang* to their personality and style. It added to my confidence.

On the other hand, I couldn’t see Ryan in that role at all. He was all show, in my opinion, not unlike a certain young woman with a brilliant smile and an expensive campaign wardrobe. If he were suddenly thrust into the Oval Office, my first thoughts would be something like “OMG, we’re dead.”

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*I wanted to say good cop – bad cop, but I don’t think it’s a charade.

The amazing thing about Ryan is that this sniveling dipshit is supposed to be a “wonk” and a “numbers guy.”

In the Republican party, someone is considered a “numbers guy” if they are able to recite a large number like the national debt multiple times and then act concerned about it on national TV.