Joe Biden Does His Job

     There's no question that he did what he had to do last night and then some. He needed to take back the offensive after the President's overly genteel performance last week.

     Going in, I had little doubt that Joe would do it. If there's one thing he has no problem with it's being aggressive and confrontational-on a fact-based basis.

     As to who won, a good sign is that Republicans are declaring it a tie whereas, Democrats feel we got a win, as Jared Bernstein notes.

     "I understand the Republicans are calling it a draw, which should tell you that Vice President Biden (my former boss, full disclosure) did very well Thursday night against Representative Paul Ryan in their first and only debate."

     http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jared-bernstein/biden-romney-tax-plan_b_1960980.html

     It's also telling that we are hearing something of a media narrative that Biden was maybe over the top in his aggressiveness-the GOP is calling him a bully-and that he laughed to much or at the wrong time.

     At this point, Democrats will take it. After the President's performance last week it's much better for the Dems for Biden to look like a bully than the bully's victim which is what the President looked like last week.

     Biden touched on every possible thing you could have wanted, not only the 47% remarks but even on Romney's own tax returns. He passionately and strongly defended the President's economic record and put Ryan on defense over the Romney tax plan-loopholes-and of course his own Medicare plan.

      Best of all, he totally reversed the President's mistake last week in actually agreeing that he and Romney largely see eye to eye on Social Security. Hello?! This is the Republican party we're talking about. As a Democrat you never concede that they are to be trusted on Social Security. They fought it tooth and nail going back to its passage in 1935-there were too few of them to block it then. While Eisenhower and Nixon were trustworthy on it, the GOP in recent years has become much more barefaced in trying to scale it back if not abolish it.

      Biden called out Ryan for his history of leading the charge to privatize Social Security through individual accounts-Al Gore's "risky privatization scheme"-and even better got Ryan to defend it all over again. The Romney team now will have to get out their etch a sketch again-cleanup on aisle 5!

      Ryan's Medicare plan is unpopular enough, now he seems to have set them up as supporting private accounts at least in principle.

      “For younger people,” Ryan said. “What we said then and what I’ve always agreed is, let younger Americans have a voluntary choice of making their money work faster for them within the Social Security system. That’s not what Mitt Romney’s proposing. We say no changes for anybody 55 and above.

     “And then the changes we talk about for younger people like myself is don’t increase benefit for the wealthy people as fast as anybody else, slowly raise the retirement age over time,” he said. “It wouldn’t get to the age of 70 until the year 2103, according to the actuaries.”

      http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/10/paul-ryan-defends-social-security-privatization.php?ref=fpblg

      That is not helpful. Overall, the consensus is that Biden won the debate-nobody denies that he dominated the debate. There are a few different polls with somewhat different verdicts. A CNN poll of likely voters does show Ryan winning narrowly directly after 48-44%. However, that's just likely voters, ie, just Democrats and Republicans.

      A CBS poll shows a different result. Among undecided voters-rather than likely-Biden got the nod by 50% to only 31%. If a big part of these debates are for the benefit of the undecideds that could bode very well. And CNN in it's focus group noted that Ryan did the worst when he was discussing abortion. So this might be something the President will focus some time on Tuesday. In an almost unprecedented way, abortion is a winning issue for the Dems this year-normally they're the ones who want to duck and cover; this year, it's been the opposite.

      Overall, Joe did his job. He defended the President's record and put them back on offense, calling out Romney's attempt to hide his true proposals. Now the President needs to pick up the baton. I think there's reason for optimism. In his recent stump speeches, he gets that what he needs to do is call out Romney on his obfuscations of his own proposals and also defend his own record as Biden did very effectively last night.

     As long as the President executes next Tuesday, I suspect this whole debate furor that started last week in Denver is put to bed. Interestingly, the debate will be held here in Hempstead, NY, which is where my bus stops for my transfer on my bus commute home from work each night. Of course, I'll miss the debate-wonder if they'd let me in at Hofstra here in Hempstead...