KIMBERLEY STRASSEL: FILIB(L)USTERING JOE
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444799904578050954175915378.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_
A contemptuous Joe Biden showed up in Kentucky on Thursday, and spent 90 minutes talking over Paul Ryan, talking over moderator Martha Raddatz, and at times, remarkably, even talking over himself. This is what counts as a “win” for the Obama campaign at this stage in the 2012 campaign.
The judgment of the late-night pundits was that Mr. Biden had done well for his party, and helped to right the Obama ship. Note, however, that Mr. Biden didn’t get those accolades because he had made a better case to Americans on jobs or entitlement reform or deficit-cutting. Mr. Biden barely offered any positive argument for how the administration he serves would revive a dismal economy, or reform the Medicare or Social Security programs that are going bankrupt, or fix soaring deficits.
In that regard, the Biden performance was nothing more than a nastier repeat of Barack Obama’s event in Denver. It wasn’t that the president had an off night or altitude sickness (as suggested by Al Gore). Mr. Obama’s problem last week was that he didn’t have answers to Mitt Romney’s challenges. In the aftermath of a debate, if your campaign’s main theme is Big Bird, you have a problem.
Within the first few minutes of this debate, it what clear that Mr. Biden’s one and only strategy was to wrap as many scare quotes around the Romney-Ryan team as humanly possible in a limited time period. In his first answer in the domestic policy section, Mr. Biden packed so many diatribes into his opening lines—Mr. Romney would let Detroit go “bankrupt”; he’d let mortgage owners sink; he’d throw the elderly under the bus; he didn’t care about he 47%; he was flacking for millionaires—that the worry was he’d run out of breath. He didn’t.
wsjAt the vice-presidential debate on Thursday.
Amid it all, too, were the constant quips designed to ram home the Obama campaign’s recent desperate strategy to paint the Romney-Ryan campaign as “liars” and flip-floppers. Mr. Biden never used that word itself, but his intent was clear. “Malarkey,” he stated. “Incredible,” he snorted. “Not true, not true,” he insisted. “I may be mistaken: [Romney] changes his mind so often, I may be wrong,” he explained. “I never say anything I don’t mean,” he said by way of contrast. And then said it again, in case anyone missed it.
Not that Mr. Biden didn’t offer plenty to keep honest fact-checkers busy, were they inclined to investigation. He repeated the utterly discredited Obama line that Mr. Romney intends to cut taxes to the tune of $5 trillion. He misrepresented a Ryan plan to reform Medicare—a plan that isn’t even part of the Romney-Ryan agenda. He once again made the argument that somehow it was the war in Iraq and the Bush tax cuts that put the economy into recession—rather than Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and subprime mortgages, and easy Federal Reserve money.
Yet the moments of policy discussion—such as they were—were largely obscured by the bullying Biden. His constant interruptions and obvious contempt for his opponent, made it all but impossible for the two men to have any real exchange of ideas. This was the real tragedy—for viewers—of the debate. Mrs. Raddatz lurched from overmanaging the questions to exercising almost zero control over the Biden steamroller. It wasn’t often pleasant viewing.
Mr. Ryan more than held his own, rebutting claim for claim the Biden accusations. He put in a particularly solid performance on foreign policy, which is not his forte. The speed at which Mr. Biden was throwing kitchen sinks didn’t give Mr. Ryan much time to make the positive case for the Romney ticket, but he managed it—on growth, taxes, entitlements. He arguably let Mr. Biden do too much bullying, though the manner in which Mr. Biden did it may not sit well with some crucial, independent voters.
The Romney debate win always meant that Mr. Ryan was going to have the difficult task of countering the Obama’s campaign’s new down-and-dirty tactics. He did what he needed to do, which was to counter, and call out, the Chicago strategy. Yet don’t be surprised if the judgment of many in the media is that the bigger win went to Mr. Biden.
The press, after all, loves a good comeback tale—especially when it’s their guy coming back—and reporters and pundits had been priming all week to explain how Mr. Biden stopped the Obama bleeding. They lowered expectations for the gaffe-prone vice president, but will now hail the fact that he resurrected the Obama campaign’s best lines (47%, hidden income taxes, the rich) as proof that he’s put his campaign back in the game.
The real proof will, of course, rest with the voters, who didn’t hear much on stage on Thursday from Mr. Biden to reverse their growing concerns that the Obama campaign is running on empty—on ideas, policies, solutions. They heard a lot from Joe, just not much that mattered.
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