No one’s denying that Joe Biden delivered the more energetic performance in Thursday’s vice presidential debate. He interrupted Paul Ryan 82 times in 90 minutes. Yet some polls say that Ryan won and many pundits are calling it a draw. How come?
Two reasons. First, deconstruct the Biden bluster and some of what he said was nonsensical. In the first 10 minutes alone, Joe insisted that the US intelligence community was wrong on Libya but trustworthy on Iran. He claimed that the staff at the Benghazi embassy didn’t want extra security when lots of sources say that they begged for it. He seemed to rule out war with Iran under any circumstances, which would remove America’s one bargaining chip. As political klutzes go, Biden is to talking what Gerald Ford was to walking.
More importantly, Biden was rude. Perhaps he was trying to emulate Romney’s dominant performance from the week before. But where Romney was commanding, Biden was just insulting. The most damning moments came when the camera went split screen. On the right was Ryan trying to make a serious point about world peace. On the left was Biden laughing. The Vice President’s performance will doubtless rally the party faithful and give them a few applause lines to live off through to November. But it’s hard to imagine independents warming to these theatrics.
The Democrats have made the classic mistake of thinking that what they want to see is what everyone else wants to see. This isn’t peculiar to the Obama/Biden ticket but part of a long-term evolution. Back in 2000, Al Gore huffed and puffed his way angrily through a presidential debate and possibly cost his party the election. The Democrats ought to have learned from that, but .....
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