It doesn't seem to me there's enough diaries on the upcoming vice-presidential debate between Joe Biden and Paul Ryan (aka the cocky yuppie/self-centered brat) so thought I'd chime in on my views:
Arguably, the vice-presidential debate between Biden and Ryan may be an important debate although by all means it won't be the end of the world for President Obama if say Biden looses the debate.
That being said, I think there's a number of things Joe Biden is capable of doing that Barack Obama never did this past Wednesday which we can definitely look forward to:
1) Joe Biden is no-nonsense and is not a wimpy Democrat by any means.
2) Biden won't hesitate to challenge those who disagree with him on a number of issues. That's who he is and how he's been as vice-president, in addition to being in the U.S. Senate.
3) Biden understands foreign policy a lot better than Paul Ryan and would be able to pin him down for his "I voted to send troops to war" stance on international relations.
4) Biden understands the middle class and the poor better than Ryan. He is more straight forward, less cocky and more direct with people when he talks to them. He comes with a less fortunate childhood than Ryan does and can relate to those who have had their share of struggles in their lives.
5) Biden really has fire in his belly. If he gets fired up, it's going to make Ryan look like a wimp.
6) Biden can actually defend the stimulus plan better than Ryan and even point out Ryan's flip-flopping on the stimulus.
7) Biden would also NOT hesitate to mention (even to Ryan directly) Ryan's statement of the plant in Janesville closing down and Obama not doing anything about it. He'd argue that Obama wasn't even president when this happened and that Ryan didn't even fight for the plant to stay open given that Ryan represents the district of the former plant.
Now here's something we can not look forward to with regards to Paul Ryan:
1) Although he flip-flops, he's not as wishy-washy as Mitt Romney is.
2) He is very competitive and will fight to the death to defend his economic views.
3) He will lie in a very sneaky way, like he usually does, to try to present himself and Mitt Romney as a more viable team to run the White House.
4) He will point out that there was a debt agreement with those in Congress and the White House to avoid a default and that it was a very bipartisan deal (even while the deal itself did very little to avoid a downgrade in the U.S. credit rating).
Here's a suggestion for Biden:
MODERATOR MARTHA RADDATZ: Congressman, what would you and Governor Romney do in the White House that would be different than what President Obama has done that helps bridge bipartisanship with Congress?
RYAN: I would reach out to members of both parties, both Democrats and Republicans, and come together with them to compromise on some of the most important issues that this country is facing today. The most immediate action we'll need to take is to address the debt problem. We have $16 trillion dollars in debt which we cannot pass to the next generation. Businesses aren't hiring. We have already been hit with a debt downgrade by the S&P and soon, if no significant deal is reached, another downgrade will worsen the outlook for the economy. We could end up like Greece.
MODERATOR MARTHA RADDATZ: Vice-president, two minutes.
BIDEN: Thank you Martha. Look, I appreciate Congressman Ryan's willingness to be bipartisan but I think his record is a completely different story. He talks about bipartisanship but for many years before Barack Obama took office, Congressman Ryan voted for a number of spending increases and was completely in line with his own party when it turned the U.S. surplus into debt more and more overtime. Yes, bipartisanship was present when the hunt for Osama Bin Laden was present but instead of criticizing the Bush administration for abandoning the mission in Tora Bora, he ended up supporting them for the Iraq War and never once spoke out against the problems we were facing in the mishandling of the mission, Rumsfeld's mismanagement or even questioned the original reason why we invaded Iraq, which was for weapons of mass destruction. This continued support of the Iraq War by him and a number of people in his own party increased the debt unlike anything we've seen in history and made us less prepared to send troops body armor, let alone handle the financial crisis in 2008. Democrats in Congress tried to raise these problems with people in Congressman Ryan's own party but they wouldn't budge. Congressman now says he's ashamed over those years he voted for all these spending increases and now wants to claim he's really conservative but his record is still his record. I'm amazed at his audacity for now putting a lot of the blame on President Obama for the debt. What he really should do instead is apologize directly to the American people for voting the way he did in those years, particularly to those thousands of Iraqis, U.S. troops and a number of foreign troops who died from our continued presence in Iraq.
What do you think about Joe Biden? Can he beat Paul Ryan at the debate or will it be tricky? Any suggestions on what he should do?
In the meantime, here's a video of Joe Biden, then senior U.S. Senator in Delaware, criticizing the Bush administration's policy in Iraq.
Lastly, while we all wait for the debate, we might as well show support for Rob Zerban's campaign against Paul Ryan in the race for the Congressional seat in Wisconsin's 1st Congressional District:
DONATE:
https://secure.actblue.com/...
VOLUNTEER:
http://hq-salsa3.salsalabs.com/...
By the way, Rob Zerban has out raised Paul Ryan in the third quarter!
http://www.examiner.com/...