A Vice Presidential Debate of Personalities

The Vice Presidential debate was clearly a debate between the personalities of Vice President Joe Biden, and Congressman Paul Ryan.  They both came well prepared with their campaign’s talking points, and presented their campaign arguments well.  Their talking points were substantive to a point, but their personalities overshadowed the content of the debate.  We can thank Vice President Biden for his shear arrogance and smirking for making the debate about personalities rather than ideas.

Mr. Biden was the arrogant bastard in the room.  President Bush’s 2004 debates and the 2008 debates are the only debates I’ve really watched (I was too young before 2004).  Compared to those debates, Mr. Biden was the most disrespectful of not only Mr. Ryan, but also the presidential debate process.

If you’re an ardent Obama supporter and a committed leftist, then Mr. Biden probably succeeded in energizing the Obama campaign’s base.  However, he didn’t say anything in his responses, and he continued Obama’s lies about the Romney-Ryan plans.  Mr. Biden’s shear arrogance turned independents off Mr. Obama.  In the long run, the rudeness that Mr. Biden displayed at Thursday night’s debate did the Obama campaign a disservice and might have cost Mr. Obama his re-election.

Mr. Ryan was the respected gentleman leader at the table.  I would have liked to see Mr. Ryan explain economic freedom and Conservative political philosophy better and more forcefully, but he did talk to the American people as adults in a respectful way.  Mr. Ryan did not have a knockout victory because he too didn’t say much of anything that could excite the American people to support the Romney-Ryan vision.

Paul Ryan was the winner of the Vice Presidential debate on Thursday night.  The polls that have come out afterwards seem to show a Romney-Ryan VP debate bounce.  There wasn’t much of a bounce to be a huge campaign success for Romney-Ryan, but enough of one to show that Mr. Ryan won the debate.  However, Mr. Ryan didn’t win because of anything that he said in the debate.  He won because Mr. Biden was the arrogant bastard.  The American people want to be treated like adults and be given real plans that address our nation’s real problems.  When a candidate is rude and arrogant, then the American people are going to stop listening to you and move towards your opponent.

Tomorrow is the second presidential debate.  It’s format is going to be a townhall-style format where some Americans will get to ask President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney questions directly.  Both candidates need to be able to connect with the audience and by extension the larger American audience.  Angrily attacking each other will definitely hurt their campaigns.

Based on what President Obama said in their first debate it’ll be clear that all it has is to continue to lie about the Romney-Ryan vision and hope the American people will eventually believe it to be true.  He can’t run on his failed record or he’ll most definitely lose his re-election chances.  Governor Romney needs to continue to be bold, respectful, and he needs not to let President Obama get away with lying about the Romney-Ryan vision for America.

The American people deserve presidential candidates that are bold in how they will solve America’s problems.  We don’t need politicians who will sugar coat our nation’s problems and offer up timid policies that won’t change a thing.  We are looking for serious leaders and serious problem-solvers.  The American people also want candidates and leaders to be respectful of each other even though they will disagree on policy directions.  We have seen too many politicians lie about their opponent’s positions just because they want to remain in power; therefore, Governor Romney shouldn’t allow President Obama continue to lie about the Romney-Ryan vision for America.