QOTD — What Do You Expect from Tonight’s Debate?
I’ll admit that this question is inspired by listening to the liberal media this week adjust their horserace reporting to make the Biden horse the most important horse in the Presidential horserace. At least this week. Mainly I keep hearing that Biden has to fix last week’s poor showing AND he has to provide enough gaffes for the media to have their story for the next few days. Of course, they won’t say the latter, but I don’t think that I’ve heard or seen a single bit of reporting that doesn’t have on abit about Biden’s gaffes — as if the real reason the media will be tuning in is to catalog them. So what do you think will happen tonight?
This image cracked me up:
As does the emphasis on the importance of this debate, when the CW before last week’s debate was that Debates Don’t Matter.
Practice your punditry in the comments.
Tags: Vice President Joe Biden
Another thing I keep hearing is how Biden has to be careful to not bully or patronize Ryan. I haven’t heard one word on how Paul Ryan has to be careful about anything.
I have no idea how tonight will go. If I had to guess… Paul Ryan will speak very quickly and throw out a ton of numbers. He’ll probably focus on minutia – You said 5% when it’s actually 4.9999%
My best advice to Joe… keep it simple. Don’t follow Ryan into the weeds unless you make him do math.
Entire books are being written about what Biden should/can’t/must do. All any Democrat speaking to any Republican has to do is just hit them with the truth.
Truth yes, but Obama tried that and it didn’t work. It needs to be inspired truth.
Biden needs to talk like a Democrat, which I think he can do. Biden should use words like:
End Medicare as we know it (and have a response when Ryan says he won’t end it).
Privatize Social Security, put Social Security dollars at the mercy of Wall Street
Voucherize Medicare, make your grandmother shop for confusing coupon-care plans.
Cut taxes for the rich. Failed trickle-down has never worked before and won’t work now (and hope Ryan doesn’t point to Biden lobbying for the trickle-down cuts in 2010).
Anything reminding us of the War On Women.
Zero out capital gains and investment taxes, which would produce a zero tax rate for Mitt Romney.
Starting new wars in the Middle East.
It depends on how wet-pantsed the media got when they were accused of poll-bias. They had to “over correct” by announcing Romney the winner of the election after the first debate….. if they still feel they need to make up ground, you can expect a devastating Ryan win….. even if he poops himself on stage.
Paul Ryan is a target-rich environment. But because of where Obama’s debate has left the campaign, Biden will also have to bring something else on the positive side – he’ll have to convince voters how Obama’s agenda will bring jobs and growth.
You and I might get how a Republican agenda would be worse than anything Obama could bring, but most voters just see Republicans as the alternative if they are convinced they aren’t happy with things under Obama.
Like others I see Ryan as an easy target, his famed budget in particular. But I expect Joe to be on the attack, he has plenty of ammo to use. It’s all things Americans don’t really want, the 1% excluded. Gaffes? Ryan’s just as bad and has been booed by some pretty potent groups in the past few months. I’ll be watching and the media be damned.
The Vice President is a large target because he was a Senator for 36 years and is, well, the Vice President.
Ryan is a large target because he has a paper trail.
Vice President: Avoid gaffes.
Ryan: Show abs.
In all, Ryan is not Palin – expect a fight. 🙂
It will depend on the flip of the coin, who goes first, attacks first; the other side will have to play defense every minute thereafter.