Joe Biden Brings the Win in Debate over Paul Ryan
The 2012 Vice Presidential debate was a showdown between current Vice President Joe Biden and VP hopeful Paul Ryan. This battle for votes was held at the Norton Center for the Arts at Centre College, in Danville, KY. I don’t know if Ryan expected Biden to perform like Obama did against Romney but that was not the case. The Joe America got last night was not the same Joe that debated Sarah Palin in the previous presidential election. Hulk Biden came to play and was not going to take any of the nonsense that Obama let slide last time.
Obama lost the last debate, not because he was wrong or overwhelmingly misleading but because he let Romney dictate the conversation. If judged on information alone Obama would’ve won that debate. Unfortunately that’s not the only deciding factor. As I’ve said before, the first debate was a learning experience and the Obama/Biden team wasn’t going to get caught off guard like that again.
VP debate moderator Martha Raddatz kept a hold on the exchange far more effectively than Jim Lehrer. She also didn’t let Ryan run her over like Romney did to Lehrer in the previous debate. Raddatz even tried to cut through the rhetoric several times and asked for specifics from the candidates. Paul had trouble giving those.
Joe Biden won this debate. He gave facts and figures and aggressively checked Paul Ryan’s attempts to control the dialogue with misinformation, question dodging and malarkey. Biden was obviously prepared to take on the Republican strategy that Romney displayed in the last debate. People criticize Joe Biden for being too aggressive however I believe he did exactly what he should have done. This election is far too important to let blatantly inaccurate and unrealistically outrageous claims stand. We’ve already seen that the Republicans aren’t too fond of factual information and are more than willing to broadcast egregious misrepresentations of reality as witnessed at the Republican National Convention. Most people in the United States are not politically aware  or are misinformed due to biased corporate media punditry. That is no more so true than with conservatives, mainly because of Fox News. The point being, is that many people are going to take the statements made in these debates at face value without doing any further research or fact checking.
Now of course the Republicans are officially going to deny that they lost this debate; unlike Barack Obama who pretty much admitted that he had an off night. But, if there is any doubt in your mind that the Republicans don’t know they lost the debate then let the following tweet serve as evidence of that acknowledgment.
I miss Jim Lehrer. @newshour #debate
— Karl Rove (@KarlRove) October 12, 2012
Yes, that is high-ranking Republican strategist and Sith Lord Karl Rove reminiscing about having a moderator that they can manhandle.
Paul Ryan did get in one jab that made me chuckle. Acknowledging that Biden had achieved a full mount position on him, Ryan said, ‘I know you’re under duress to make up for lost ground.’ Point to you Paul. Well played sir. Well played.
If you missed the debate or just want to watch Joe Biden keep his foot on Paul Ryan’s neck for 90 minutes check out the video.
The ball’s in your court Barack.
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Jaylon Carter is a blogger, social media marketing consultant, former Congressional Campaign Media & Communications Director, national labor union vice block leader, and a Hip Hop artist who performs under the stage name Timid (@timidmc).
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