Obama Campaign: What They Are Saying About Tonight's Vice-Presidential Debate Part II
Biden:
‘Controlled’…’Hung Ryan out to dry’… ‘Stronger’…’Lots of nitty gritty
details’
Ryan: ‘Didn’t do
anything positive’… ‘Missed opportunity’ … ‘Visibly Gulped’… ‘Hard put to
answer’
George
Stephanopoulos: “Over the course
of the debate, more of the issues fell in Biden’s corner, he was able to take
control of more of the debate.”
Chuck
Todd: “If you were
scoring as a debate coach, you’d say, ‘boy, the guy who controlled that debate
was Joe Biden.”
Mark
Shields: “I just
thought he really kind of hung Ryan out to dry on the no details of the tax
plan. I mean, that really was exposed.”
Mike
Allen: “This also is
a reminder that the promise of the Paul Ryan pick was supposed to be that they
were going to tell the American people hard truths, this was a sign that they
were getting us ready for an adult conversation. Well, we haven’t had one hard
truth said to us since and I don’t remember Paul Ryan giving us a hard truth
tonight.”
Governor
Martin O’Malley: “People said
‘oh he laughed too much’, but it is laughable that we would be 28 days out from
this election and they still haven't told us how they're going to do this
wonderful plan that all the details are behind door number three. That stuff is
laughable. You can't cut by 20% taxes for millionaires and billionaires,
corporations by 30% and not have to pay for it somehow.”
Jim
Vandehei: “There was an
enormous gap, it seemed, in substance and specificity, the gap between Joe Biden
and Paul Ryan when it came to everything from what’s happening in Afghanistan to
the Middle East to the defense budget to taxes. On every single one of those,
it’s like Biden came ready to brawl, he came ready to brawl with lots of nitty
gritty details.”
John
Harris: “It seems to
me…the consensus back here in our newsroom is that [Ryan] did at best a passable
performance…He really didn’t do anything positive to help his own reputation or
help the case of his ticket.”
Lois
Romano: “You know, I
think [Ryan] had a missed opportunity on his own budget. You know, it’s his own
budget, his own numbers. I feel like Biden got the best of him on
it.”
Sam
Youngman: “I tend to
agree with Jonathan, I saw a very long pause from Congressman Ryan when the
discussion turned to abortion. I don't think he was probably prepared to discuss
that.”
Wolf
Blitzer: “Congressman
Ryan’s low point happened near the end of the debate around 10:20 eastern when
he was asked about abortion.”
Jonathan
Chait: “I predicted that
Paul Ryan would wipe the floor with Joe Biden. That did not so much happen. Ryan
did not perform quite as well as I expected – he seemed greener, younger, and he
visibly gulped when challenged. But Biden delivered a revelatory performance
that proved me utterly wrong.”
Buzzfeed: “After
effectively vanishing from the national stage, Ryan re-emerged Thursday not as
the intellectual leader of the right, but as passable debater with a slightly
crooked necktie.”
Reuters: “While Ryan
tried to depict the Obama administration as projecting weakness, Biden hit back
hard with repeated questions on details of Romney's foreign policy plan, which
Ryan was hard put to answer.”
Fox focus
group participant: “I found that
the Vice President’s position on foreign policy was stronger than Paul Ryan’s. I
really thought he scored some pretty good points
there.”
National
Review’s Robert Costa: “It wasn’t a
knockout performance [for Ryan].”
