If you hear “Biden was mean” you say “Ryan was weak.”
If you hear “Biden was classless” you say “Ryan brought up Romney’s car accident anecdote knowing Biden had lost his family in a car accident, and Biden is classless?”
If you hear Biden “laughed and smiled too much” you say “I laugh at people who lie to me, too.”
If you hear “Ryan gave specifics” you say “Really? Where’s the Beef?”
If you hear “Biden has no plan for Medicare, unlike Ryan” you say “Biden’s plan is to keep it. Ryan’s is to kill it. I prefer Biden.”
If you hear “Biden is a Bad Catholic” you say “What part of I don’t want to impose my religious beliefs on others don’t you understand?”
Well, those are my suggestions. Please feel free to come up with some of your own.
Clearly the R talking points have been distributed to most of the team.
Smirking, childish, clownish, condescending, bullying, etc. Ryan was the adult in the room, Biden the child… yeah, right! I’m listening to the callers on C-Span’s morning show and the R’s are all butthurt complaining about those D’s not working with the R’s and being poor sports… Shocked! Just shocked at the political discourse!
They are freaking out because they saw their knight in shining armor exposed as a little boy in a Halloween costume. Freaking Out!
Read Charlie Pierce’s write-up for your own talking points. He said it all so well.
And mock the whining R’s with Charlie’s punchline from that column…
I will say nothing. I just want to savor the shrill sounds of their hypocritical freak out. If you’re complaining because the other guy smiled too much, you got a shellacking, OK? I don’t think I need to explain that to these folks.
I already had a conversation with my right of Genghis Kahn brother.
Bro: blah, blah, blah Ryan Good
ME: wild manic laughter
Bro: blah, blah, blah Biden Bad
ME: wild manic laughter
Bro: blah, blah, blah Romeny Winning
ME: wild manic laughter
Bro: Ok, so it DIDN’T go so good
ME: I feel your pain … wild manic laughter
Bro: he hung up.
Ah! The dynamic between brothers!
What I saw:
Biden came across as a bit shclick, disprespectful. I imagine his team fans feel he was polished and didn’t take any flack, looked good shutting down Ryan. Fence sitters may have been impressed that he was was forceful, or they may have found all the smiles and polish a bit much and even too patronizing, cockey. His fans will say Ryan deserves no respect and it’s about time.
Ryan came across as a little boy struggling with his own facts quite often. He appeared polite and respectful, but also timid and a bit stumbling. I imagine his home team fans felt he put honesty first and, while a little unpolished, still had his facts down and that he looked good in comparison to the over-polished uber-politician “smile while I stick in my hand in your pocket” slickness of Biden, who rudely interrupted. Fence sitters might have been charmed by his “he seems real like me” performance, although others might have been put off by his stumbling.
After all the hot air blow about Ryan, I found him to be outmatched, and while seemingly “I’m one of you” with the greenhorn surface, still a politician beneath the veneer. Voters don’t scratch too deep, and he may have won them over despite it.
If find Biden to be quasi-repulsive – a caricature of the political “I’m here to help you” style that is causing more people to have a bad taste in their mouth they’d rather spit out. I also think Biden is a bit of a buffoon, and that if his name were Quayle, his gaffs would have been near nightly jokes from Leno and Letterman in that he makes Quayle look like a genius. But D’s and some fence sitters will gladly embrace former KKK members, womanizers, drunks, etc. if they support their own causes, so I don’t worry for them as voters. Fence sitters tired of politics as usual may not find it all that attractive, and even if Biden were uttering 100% God’s truth, his style could well undermine the veracity.
Just my two cents as a bystander who does not care much for either.
Did you really just compare Biden to Dan Quayle?
I don’t even know what to do with that, it strains credibility.
Seriously? Homerism much?
Taking politics out of the equation, when it comes to stupid comments that undermine credibility, Biden’s up there.
Don’t get me wrong: Quayle was nothing to write home about (i say politely), but he also got ZERO leeway (not saying he deserved any) and was nowhere as stupid as he was made out to be by those who mercilessly ridiculed him. But were he to have said the exact same things as Biden over the last four years, it would have been UGLY.
I know.. I know. Biden’s your guy and you probably hate anything republican. Lots of leeway for home team, vs. kill the enemy. I get it.
(Predicting response to spare some of you guys the trouble: [voiced in as nasally smug a tone as possible] “Anyone who compares Biden to Quayle is beyond stupid and not worthy of any further consideration.” My response: Large yawn.)
You obviously didn’t like Biden’s style, but the comparison to Quayle is stupid beyond words. Quayle wasn’t a punch line because of his gaffes – any more than Palin was – they were both punch lines because they are both intellectual lightweights who were exposed as such very soon into whatever interview they gave. Neither has depth on any policy issue.
In contrast, Biden is a walking policy encyclopedia. For decades he was a regular on the Sunday news shows, usually on foreign policy topics where he was and is recognized as a leading expert.
When Quayle debated Gore it was a lot of “that’s not true” “yes it is” “no it isn’t” kind of nonsense. When Quayle got specific, such as quoting an exact page in Gore’s book, he was completely wrong.
What Biden did was contradict Ryan on his frequent errors. Ryan said unemployment is worsening – no, it’s getting better. Ryan avoided offering any specifics on what would be cut to pay for the 20% tax reduction – despite numerous attempts to get any answer out of him from the moderator. Biden laughed and pointed out how absurd that is. And so on.
Neither Quayle nor Palin, if debating a pathological liar like Ryan, could have done what Biden did because neither one has the knowledge nor the intellectual ability to apply it.
Pick on Biden for his style – because on substance he’s one of the strongest there is in Washington of either party.
Stupid beyond words. O-kee-Do-kee.
Ryan tried to throw Joe off with that bullshit car wreck story
Did not work
Invariably when you ask someone what they came away with from the Pres’l debate they’ll say something along the lines of how Mitt was heartfelt and well spoken. Mitt won on body language, but a week later there’s no takeaway of substance that he left the audience with.
Biden won on body language last night. Unlike Mitt, Joe left the audience with a body of distinct policies, and good arguments for not only Obama’s administration but the Dem’s as a platform. That he went a long way in erasing the R talking points directly coming from Ryan’s mouth but the day after his points, like yours become stronger and useable.
Ding! Ding! Ding!
Unfortunately substance does not win elections.
If you didn’t want Biden to laugh, you shouldn’t have sent a clown to debate him!
Centrists and Independents are Authoritarians.
They don’t much care about policy. They want to be told who is the better candidate, why they are the better candidate, and why that candidate’s opponent is bad.
Authoritarians desire authority. They want to be told what to think and why. Centrists and Independents want to see leadership. They want to see a candidate be bold. To not back down, equivocate, or try to find common ground.
Republicans do this. It is one of the reasons they hold onto power even though they don’t really have a majority constituency. They yell and scream and accuse and don’t back down.
If Biden is being called a meanie, or offensive, etc, it is because Republicans know that it works, and that it is supposed to be their schtick, damn’t.
Every poll you see where people want politicians to compromise is a poll that really says they want one side to give in to the other side.
Democrats won’t win votes by being the side that gives in.
Biden did just fine. Let’s hope Obama stops trying to agree with Rmoney. Let Obama respectfully destroy Rmoney and his bullshit, and you’ll see a Obama win and bump.
Period.