"Biden’s most effective, and characteristic moment came when he defended the stimulus, swatting aside Ryan’s insinuations of corruption with statistics showing it had been nearly devoid of fraud. He cornered Ryan by citing the two letters he had written asking for stimulus funds for his district, letters which endorsed the argument that stimulus would create jobs. Ryan appeared not to have prepared for the attack at all." - NYMagazine

I watched the whole debate except for the last 20 minutes. Here are my summary thoughts:

1) Biden did a good job with getting the facts straight and challenging Ryan's misinformation, though he could really use a little less laughing and smirking.

2) Ryan tried to remember a lot of names and places, especially for the foreign policy part, in order to sound informed. But unfortunately, not well trained enough to appear that he is ACTUALLY informed with foreign policies - we can sort of see through him - rather book trained.

3) The moderator did an excellent job, challenging both debaters and controlling the flow of the debate, which allowed an informational exchange.

4) I'm amazed by some of Ryan's false assertions - i.e. he was saying this administration wasn't willing to arrive at bipartisanship, and there was one other obvious example which I can't recall right now. Doesn't he feel shameful about turning the facts the other way around?" - Apple, Berkeley, NYT

I think Ryan's stance on abortion is really, really going to come back and bit them in the ass. Before teaming up with Romney, he was even worse, saying that even rape wasn't grounds for abortion.

Of all that they covered yesterday, I think that will be the most damaging.

nixluva wrote:I find it amazing how much the style of the debaters is talked about rather than WHAT they said. Ryan was out of his league in many of the topics, tho he did show a high ability to remember his talking points and deliver them, but the problem is that he was often wrong. Joe nailed him on Medicare, Abortion Rights, the Stimulus, Afghanistan, The Auto Bailout and Iran. Foreign Policy overall was not Ryan's strong point. Joe just has too much experience for Ryan.

The biggest problem for Romney/Ryan is that their stance on the economy is at odds with people in the swing states. They need to win Ohio but the things they stand for just don't register with most voters in that state. They can't win without Ohio IMO. It will be interesting to see how the polls shake out over the next week.

your right the main issue is the economy but, Ryan hurt them there with his plans to kill planned parenting, preschool and other necessary programs for women and women with children. The fact that is has been fact checked that Rom/Ryan's plan will kill medicare and raise the cost of senior benefits.

He/they are taking women back to the stoneage.

I hope the American people have enough sense not to trust another lying Republican to take office. They fell for Bush and his lies and look where it got us. Romney will do it again and the average American can't survive another hit caused by Republican Greed. After we just now are starting to crawl out of the hole they dug I can't believe how many people actually want to hand the Republican's control again. It's like they have amnesia. This stuff they're selling is the same crap Bush sold the country and it nearly destroyed everything.

Let's remember that Bush was handed a SURPLUS and he turned that into a huge deficit and wrecked the economy. His tax cuts didn't create any jobs and we've seen income inequality explode to record levels. The rich just got even richer and everyone else took a huge hit. How can anyone defend this record?