At the end of the day, the VP debate probably won't move the needle much, but make no mistake, Joe Biden won that debate.
In high school debate competitions, it's style over substance. But this wasn't a competition for a laser-engraved plaque, it's for our future.
There is a lot of criticism over the purported lack of respect the Vice President showed last night by smiling, laughing and generally bringing the fight to Congressman Ryan. But that is exactly what needed to happen. He was reacting exactly in the way that regular people react to the positions taken by the GOP this cycle.
When people do the work, read the facts and track the journey that the Romney train has traveled it is laughable. He has gone from being a moderate governor in Massachusetts arguing to "sustain and support" Roe v. Wade, and advocating universal health care for the country to repudiating Roe v. Wade and attacking Obamacare and the individual mandate. Here's a fun little compilation of the Mitt-Flops over the years.
So what does this have to do with the VP debate and Biden? Everything. The constantly fluctuating policies of Romney/Ryan should be laughed at, they should frustrate a common sense person and they should be called to task.
Now maybe when the students of Jefferson High School face off against Madison High, they should be judged not for their words but for their polish and delivery. But when candidates for elected office are articulating their actual policy positions to the people that will choose who will run this country, their words matter. The words that mattered were delivered by Joe Biden. I think my favorite example may have been this:
"Instead of signing pledges by Grover Norquist not to ask the wealthiest
among us to contribute to bring back the middle class, they should be
signing a pledge saying to the middle class, 'We're going to level the
playing field. We're going to give you a fair shot again. We are going
to not repeat the mistakes we made in the past by having a different set
of rules for Wall Street and Main Street.'"
I don't think many people will disagree with the notion that substantively, Joe won the debate. However, even the left learning news networks were commenting on Joe's demeanor. I believe Joe was aggressive when it counted most and did a good job calling out Ryan on lack of specific policy implementations to "close tax loopholes" or create xx number of jobs, but inappropriately laughing and smiling when Ryan gave Joe his uninterrupted moments in the sun seemed to draw the attention from the issues towards proper etiquette of debates. When we, as a country, focus on smiling/laughing rather than the true issues before us, it just goes to demonstrate the intelligence of those who cannot comprehend the global impact of the next election. As it seems you are a professed Democrat, best of luck in the coming election and thank you for speaking/writing after logically thinking about the issues.
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