“The instant polls: CNBC had it Ryan 56%-36%, CBS Biden 50%-31%, CNN Ryan 48%-44%, AP Ryan 51%-43%.”
I and TMEW met another couple for dinner at one of the Darden (you know, the chains that Obamacare has hit) restaurants (Olive Garden – TMEW’s favorite!) to talk over some things and I was hoping to get home in time to watch it in real time instead of DVR time. Mission almost accomplished – was 6 minutes behind what was actually happening). Turns out, I didn’t have to watch more than a few minutes to figure out how the rest of the time was spent.
Mike and Tim have “The Smirkfest” optics pretty well under control.
What we saw last nite was the Al Gore Debate effect split into two, sorta sideways. If you remember, Al Gore, in his Prez debates with Bush II, couldn’t get his demeanor down pat: too angry, too subdued, and well, loserville. Obama in last week’s debate was said to have been too passive (me? I think he was too busy doing the grimace thing, but I thought that was the real Obama when not throwing out red-meat to a crowd of absolute devotees and not having TOTUS telling him what to say). Last night, we saw Al Gore Part 1, which is to say, Joe Biden bringing his smirkfest of toothiness.
Certainly it was clear that Joe was either told, or was a mind unto himself, to be the aggressor (warranted or not). Problem is, his foil (Paul Ryan) didn’t fall for the bait. I think that for most of the early part of the debate, Joe was looking for the political spinning backfist from Ryan – which never came. I have to hand it to Ryan as he never waivered from being cool, calm, and collected during Biden’s debatis interruptus. While Biden came off as The Jerk, Ryan came off as a bit of The Wonk – well prepared by not as willing to mix it up on Biden’s rules. That’s the thing about a Bully – if the other guy ignores it (or mostly ignore it), it doesn’t work.
In walking around the Right Blogosphere, it seems that’s the consensus – Biden might have made the base happy, but what was the picture, what was the optics, that were presented to that ever-decreasing sliver of undecideds for whom political roughhousing is anathema?
I’m sure that there will be more from me on this (I generally do not blog during work hours), but if the snap / instant polls at the top are any indication, it was a real close debate with respect to declaring a winner / loser – but these early polls seem to suggest that denigrating your opponent through your demeanor doesn’t work (e.g., Holier than my opponent – with a mean streak).
