During the closing statements of Thursday's VP Debate I half-expected Joe Biden to turn and look directly into the camera, addressing all of the nay-sayers who wanted Obama to drop him and make Hillary Clinton his running mate, and yell, "HOW Y'ALL LIKE ME NOW, HATERS!?"
The pundits, which I purposely avoided watching that night, may try to call this race a "draw" because they need the ratings that come from a close contest. But from I heard and saw (mostly heard, since I was listening on the car radio as I was driving home) Biden was the clear winner. Biden brought the facts, he brought the fight, and most of all he brought the passion that Obama was missing in his debate.
Biden very effectively called the Romney/Ryan ticket out for Romney's 47% comments, as well as Ryan's own comments calling 30% of the country "takers". He called Ryan out on their $760b Medicare lie as well as his own Medicare "voucher" program. He forced Ryan to directly contradict his party's platform (not to mention his own) on abortion. And he totally eviserated Ryan on foreign policy. Biden even did something that the mainstream media hasn't done, calling Ryan out on his requesting stimulus money while at the same time decrying the stimulus. And he did it all while wearing a big ol' smile on his face. Furthermore, Biden batted back every lie and talking point Ryan had to offer, going beyond simply explaining the administration's policies to actually defending them, quite stridently, I might add. That was something we didn't see from President Obama. Even listening on the radio, you could hear in Paul Ryan's voice that he would rather have been just about anywhere else but that stage. In short, Biden schooled Ryan like a below average student, spanked him as if he were one of his kids, and sent him to his room without any supper. Said room being the studios of FOX News.
As I mentioned in my last post (and various Twitter postings), I decided not to get caught up in the media post-spinning of the debate. I got home, watched the rest of the debate on C-SPAN, then when it was over I turned everything off and went to bed (after tweeting a few post-debate observations). My conclusion that Biden had won the debate was based solely on what I heard and saw, without the hyperactive rantings of the hyper-partisan cable media. I became more sure of my conclusions the next morning when the right-wing started whining about how Joe was "rude" and "obnoxious", his "condescending laughter" and "disrespect" at poor Paul Ryan, how he steamrolled over the debate, and how Martha Raddatz was "ineffective" and "biased" as a debate moderator. Hmmm. Sound familiar? When the worst blowback from your side is the other guy "laughed" too much, then it's time to stick the fork in. You know your guy lost when the post-debate spin evolves from how good your guy was to how the other guy made your guy look bad.
Job one for Joe Biden was to stop the bleeding that was the result of Wednesday's presidential debate. Mission accomplished on that score. Now it's Obama's turn to save the patient and finally put this thing away. He needs to totally end Mitt Romney on Tuesday. Forget being diginified and "presidential". This is a job for the "angry Black man." Obama has to call Romney out on every idiosyncracy, inconsistency, and outright lie he's displayed over the past 8 years he's been running for office. He has plenty of ammo from their last debate, and Biden has shown us how he can use it effectively. It's time for Obama to BRING IT!
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