What Biden Needs To Do Tonight
Since at least one former occupant of the office (John Nance Garner) said the vice presidency was not worth a bucket of warm piss,
one might think the vice-presidential debate tonight is worth even less.
But due to President Obama's lackluster performance in the first debate and his failure to point out that what Mitt Romney was saying on stage was often completely opposite to what he has been saying on the campaign trail all year, tonight's debate has taken on great importance.
If Biden "wins" it could stanch the bleeding.
If he loses, the media will report the score as Republicans 2, Democrats 0.
What should Biden do?
Some people are urging him to call Romney and Ryan liars but that could easily turn off independent and muddled voters.
As an alternative,
Matt Miller has written a synopsis of what Biden needs to do.
Basically, what he should say is that Romney governed as a reasonable, moderate governor of Massachusetts, enacting Romneycare, the model for Obamacare. But when he hit the Republican primaries, he moved very sharply to the right, repudiating his own health-care plan, flipping his position on abortion, and generally trying to erase everything he did in Massachusetts.
What would he do as President?
Cut taxes for the rich?
Defund Planned Parenthood?
Who knows?
The stakes are too great to let him win and find out later.
A careful walk through of Romney's history and how he has kowtowed to the Paul Ryans of the Republican Party might do the job.
Of course, other people have advice.
David Brooks suggests that Biden should not focus on the fact that Ryan's budget does not add up.
People can't do simple arithmetic, and certainly not with 12-digit numbers.
Instead, Biden should focus on the moral issue of throwing granny under the bus.
Ryan's budgetary knowledge won't help him there.
Ryan has a different task.
He has to come over as a young reformer intent on fixing a broken system.
Since his plan to replace Medicare with a voucher system is wildly unpopular, though, he has his work cut out for him.
"Don't scratch your ear, even if it itches" is the advice candidates get from their debate coaches.
The problem is the split screen that all the networks use.
So even when a candidate is not speaking, 60 million people are looking at him and any tic or strange movement could spell defeat in November.
In a slightly more rational world, scratching your ear would not mean you don't get to be Vice President, but in our world that's how it is.
http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2012/P ... tml#item-2
