Advantage, Obama



One of the most effective moments for President Obama in Tuesday's debate (transcript, here) at Hofstra University came after Candy Crowley elicited a response from Mitt Romney on "pay equity, Governor."  Following the ex-governor's uninspiring response, Crowley asked Obama to "get in on this quickly, please."   The President referred to his support for the Lilly Ledbetter bill, then continued

Now, there are some other issues that have a bearing on how women succeed in the workplace: for example, their health care. (Inaudible) — a major difference in this campaign is that Governor Romney feels comfortable having politicians in Washington decide the health care choices that women are making. I think that's a mistake. In my health care bill, I said insurance companies need to provide contraceptive coverage to everybody who is insured, because this is not just a — a health issue; it's an economic issue for women. It makes a difference. This is money out of that family's pocket.

Governor Romney not only opposed it; he suggested that, in fact, employers should be able to make the decision as to whether or not a woman gets contraception through her insurance coverage. That's not the kind of advocacy that women need. When Governor Romney says that we should eliminate funding for Planned Parenthood, there are millions of women all across the country who rely on Planned Parenthood for not just contraceptive care. They rely on it for mammograms, for cervical cancer screenings. That's a pocketbook issue for women and families all across the country.

Eliminating federal funding for Planned Parenthood is truly a radical idea, and it is one unabashedly advocated by Mitt Romney.      He claimed "I don't believe employers should tell someone whether they could have contraceptive care or not," but supports the Blunt Amendment, which would allow employers to opt out of the requirement that they provide employees with contraceptive coverage if it violates their "religious beliefs or moral convictions," a loophole the size of the Grand Canyon.  

Following the debate, Chris Matthews asked Eugene Robinson and Joan Walsh why Romney "can't bring himself" to say simply that women deserve equal pay as men.   Romney has no problem with employers deciding to pay women the same as men.  Or more.  Or less.  Or perhaps nothing at all.  In Mitt's world, employers should not be forced to do anything they don't want to do.  They shouldn't be coerced into even hiring qualified women.  Rather, there are going to be so many jobs in a Romney administration, "employers in the new economy.... are going to be so anxious to get good workers they're going to be anxious to hire women," perhaps from those "binders full of women" Mitt had in Massachusetts.    Presumably, if jobs aren't plentiful, those employers can choose to shut women out of consideration entirely.

Obama could have improved on his answer by adding that his support for widespread access to birth control is the is the best deterrent to unwanted pregnancies.  But quibbling would be unfair; it was a good answer, and a good night on Long Island.




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Indirect, But Obvious


A Tea Party Victory Fund ad (video immediately below) asks "Have Barack Obama's policies empowered or enslaved Americans?"








Lee Atwater, this Wikipedia entry reminds us, was the GOP strategist who in 1981 explained

You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can't say “nigger” — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “Nigger, nigger.

Digby thus argues "Lee Atwater would be scratching his head over this.  He thought they'd have to be much subtler by this time."

But Lee Atwater was prescient.  Consider the model of obfuscation and prevarication, the ex-governor of Massachusetts himself:

There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe that government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it. That that's an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what. And I mean, the president starts off with 48, 49, 48—he starts off with a huge number. These are people who pay no income tax. Forty-seven percent of Americans pay no income tax. So our message of low taxes doesn't connect. And he'll be out there talking about tax cuts for the rich. I mean that's what they sell every four years. And so my job is not to worry about those people—I'll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives. What I have to do is convince the 5 to 10 percent in the center that are independents that are thoughtful, that look at voting one way or the other depending upon in some cases emotion, whether they like the guy or not, what it looks like. I mean, when you ask those people…we do all these polls—I find it amazing—we poll all these people, see where you stand on the polls, but 45 percent of the people will go with a Republican, and 48 or 4…

FactCheck.org sets out the history of the current program, SafeLink, which has its origins in The Telecommunications Act of 1934 and the 1996 Telecommunications Act, which created the Universal Service Administrative Trade Company, an independent not-for-profit corporation set up by the FCC.   The specific, demonized program, which in no way involves President Obama, was created under President George W. Bush with grants from the USAC, which is sustained by funding from telecommunications companies.  It is operated by TracFone Wireless of Tampa, Florida, a subsidiary of America Movil.

Whether by Tea Party extremists, the GOP apparatus, or the Romney campaign, the effort surely is to divide Americans from each other.  Tonight, President Obama needs to drive home that message. Mitt Romney may be ready for an attack from Obama for the infamous remarks at a Boca Raton fund-raiser.  But he would have a hard time explaining to the American people why he believes Social Security recipients and soldiers in combat should have to pay federal income taxes and don't "take personal responsibility and care for their lives."     It presents a clear opening for the President, as do Mitt Romney's offshore accounts, apparent GOP plans to balance the federal budget by eliminating the mortgage interest tax deduction, and the Republican ticket's hostility to women's health care.



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The Myth That Will Not Die


The Washington Post/ABC News poll asked voters "regardless of who (sic) you support, which candidate do you trust to do a better job handling" international affairs, taxes, health care policy, Medicare, the government health insurance program for senior; an unexpected major crisis.

President Obama leads Mitt Romney on each of the six measures, by an average margin of almost nine percentage points.  On one measure, which candidate is trusted "to do a better job dealing with the federal budget deficit," Romney leads, 47%-44%.  Overall, Obama leads Romney by nearly seven (7) percentage points on the seven indices.

The same Washington Post/ABC News survey asks registered voters for whom they are likely to vote, and Obama leads by 7% (only 3% among likely voters), which correlates exactly with opinions on which will probably handle those issues better.  But when asked whether whether the registered voter believes Mitt Romney is "honest and trustworthy," only 40% answer in the affirmative while 56% answer in the negative, a deficit of 16%.  Similarly, when queried whether they think "as president" Romney "would do more to favor the middle class or more to favor the wealthy," only 31% select the middle class while 58% select the wealthy (5% believe "equally," 8% don't know).

So we have a huge plurality of registered voters believing the Republican nominee is not honest and trustworthy and that he is more likely to "favor" the wealthy than the middle class.   And in this same group- registered voters- Barack Obama, the man the media tells us everyone likes so much personally, is up by.... a whopping 7 percentage points.

A true Beltway guy, blogger and pundit Chris Cillizza, observes at that very newspaper (The Washington Post) on whose behalf the poll was taken

In a poll in which the two candidates are separated by a handful of points on virtually every question, the massive canyon on likability stands out.  Sixty percent of registered voters said that Obama was the more "friendly and likable" person while 30 percent chose Romney.  (Among likely voters, it was 58 percent for Obama, 32 percent for Romney.)

He asks "will likability make up undecideds' minds?"

Yes, it would, Chris- if it were true that voters believe Barack Obama is a wonderful human being.

Likability does have an effect on voting decisions; if it did not, we wouldn't be subjected to the "who would you rather have a beer with?" or similar questions.    And it almost certainly would have a particularly large effect on the decision of a voter who at this late date is still undecided.

But, sorry, Chris... and most of the media... and most Americans, Democratic or Republican or Independent/Unaffiliated.   Americans simply are not into Barack Obama as a person (even before the last debate).   So many voters really, really seem to believe that the nation proved it is not racist when it elected Barack Obama as President.  Then, they are asked if that same black man is honest and trustworthy, and opinion-makers somehow find it impressive that 56% say 'yes' and only 40% say 'no.'

Let's be honest, shall we?  Hard-core conservative Republicans (a majority of the species), of course, will answer in the negative- they think the worst of Obama.    But tugging at the minds, and consciences, of a lot of white Americans is: I can't say I don't like or don't trust our first black President.   It's what they sense they are supposed to believe.

It's how we roll in the U.S.A.     And if that weren't the case, if people really did like Obama as much as they claim- given obvious personal distaste for Romney and confidence the incumbent would handle most issues in a superior fashion- this wouldn't be a horse race.   This would be a rout.





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Summoning Testosterone To Blast Currency Manipulation



He certainly will be busy on January 21, 2013 if he's elected President next month.  "Over the past several years," Mitt Romney said on October 13 at a rally at Shawnee State University in Portsmouth, Ohio, "the president has failed to call China a currency manipulator.  Let me tell you, on Day One of my administration I will label China a currency manipulator.  We have got to get those jobs back and get trade to be fair."

Somehow, he will have to fit that in while he issues waivers from the Affordable Care Act in all 50 states, reinstates the Mexico City policy, eliminates funding for the United Nations Population Fund, "ensures that organizations like Planned Parenthood are not funded by the U.S. government, "reverse(s) every single Obama regulation that attacks our religious liberty and threatens innocent life," and takes seven other vague, but far-reaching actions which rival Obama's promise to begin to slow the rise of the oceans and to heal the planet.

Romney might immediately reinstate the Mexico City policy, which was rescinded promptly by Barack Obama once he was inaugurated, in what was one of the first and greatest acts of his presidency.  But the others he is unlikely to do "on Day One," which otherwise would will leave him no time to eat, sleep, or confer with advisers.   And in the unlikely event he were to decide (as he should) to declare mainland China a currency manipulator, he would be a towering hypocrite or, more generously, have pulled off a Nixon Goes To China moment.

In the spirit of never doing for oneself what another already has done, I repeat below a portion (summarized from, and attributed to, this New York Times article) of what appears to be an October 14 editorial from timesfreepress.com, the online edition of Chattanooga Times Free Press:

• Romney had as much as $2.25 million invested in at least eight Chinese factories that export heavily, including a company, Asimco Technologies, that bought out and closed two Grand Haven, Mich., auto camshaft factories that employed 500 workers in 2007.

• Romney has invested additional millions of dollars in Bain funds that, since 2006, have quadrupled their investments and now hold a controlling $2.6 billion stake in shares of Sensata Technologies, a 4,000-employee Chinese manufacturer of vehicle, aircraft and electric motors. Two years ago, Sensata bought a Freeport, Ill., plant that makes auto sensors; It is now in the process of shutting down the 170-employee plant and moving it to a government built-and-subsidized plant in the Chinese coastal province of Jiangsu, which gets tax breaks for export-oriented companies.

Freeport workers, who had to train their Chinese owners, have pleaded futilely with Romney to reverse the deal. They also discovered in bankruptcy hearings that Asimco's Chinese owners had the company transfer money to China to obtain a tax rebate there for relocating the company and most of its equipment and jobs to Jiangsu Province's special export zone. The bankruptcy, of course, now threatens the Illinois workers' benefits and future.

• Bain Capital had invested $234 million in China's Gome Electrical Appliances in 2009, despite an accusation by Microsoft that the Chinese retailer was selling computers with software pirated by Gome. It also invested in a Hong Kong appliance maker that was sued for copying a French company's deep-fryer.

• Romney has invested as much as $1 million each in Bain's Capital Funds IX and X, and as much as $250,000 in Bain's Capital Asia Fund, all of which are held by Bain in entities in the tax-haven of Cayman Islands, and are used by Bain to invest in China.

• The Bain Capital Asia Fund 2007 also invested $39 million in Feixiang Group, a manufacturer of chemicals which had qualified for government tax subsidies for "high-tech" industrial exporters. Though Romney claims to have put his holdings in a blind trust, it is managed by the same law firm that has long represented both Romney and Bain, including some of the Bain funds in which Romney is invested.

"These findings," the editors note, not only show that Romney's investment strategies support China's continued export success and profits. They also coincide with other off-shored jobs and plant closings in the United States that Bain engineered after taking on heavy debt to finance lavish executive pay-offs in highly leveraged buy-out deals.

Presidential candidates typically promise a crackdown on China, then quietly reverse field once elected.   The pattern likely would continue in a (obscenity ahead) Romney-Ryan administration.   The guy who would disdainfully toss aside 47% of Americans is hardly likely to flinch at the prospect of more American jobs going overseas, as demonstrated by the promise in his acceptance speech to "make trade work for America by forging new trade agreements" and in the first presidential debate to "open up more trade."

Hasn't Barack Obama done enough (damage) in this area already?   (Warning:  outrageous euphemism ahead).  The Obama Administration has signed three new "free trade" deals, with Columbia, Panama, and South Korea, and currently is negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership, whose danger extends beyond exporting American jobs abroad.  Into this reality steps one Mitt Romney, who recently vowed he "will reverse that failure" of a President "who has not signed one new free-trade agreement in the past four years."

Given Mitt Romney's history at Bain, his past and current investments in a (not so blind) blind trust, and his promise of a free-trade policy on steroids, a question pursuant to his pledge on currency manipulation leaps to mind:  Is the former governor actually referring to mainland China?




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Support For Earned Benefits, To A Point



Evidence that ABC's Martha Raddatz effectively moderated the Veep debate is demonstrated by criticism from Rush Limbaugh, who today claimed

So it was predictable that she was gonna do that, and she did it. I mean, you've seen the stats of how many interruptions and how many questions versus how many interruptions of questions for Biden. It was clearly stacked, clearly unfair, and it was obvious to everybody. If you thought it was unfair, you're not in a vacuum. Everybody thought the same thing. 

Ah, yes. Questioning a Republican:  proof positive of bias.   And although Raddatz did a good job (particularly compared to the hapless Lehrer), she did whiff on at least one substantive question.  (The last question of the debate simply was not substantive.  Chris Hayes nailed it.) Midway through, she asked "Let's talk about Medicare and entitlements. Both Medicare and Social Security are going broke and taking a larger share of the budget in the process. Will benefits for Americans under these programs have to change for the programs to survive?"  CAP's Pat Garofalo explains

The media consistently fuel the misconception that Social Security is bankrupt or going broke, whipping itself into a frenzy of doomsday scenarios and asking politicians when they will deal with this supposedly grave threat to the U.S. budget. However, Social Security can pay full benefits until 2037, and nearly full benefits for years after that, even if literally nothing is done to change the program. Reporters would surely be shocked if infrastructure projects, child nutrition programs, or any other federal effort were fully funded for more than two decades, but no credit is given to lawmakers for achieving just that with Social Security.

Furthermore, Social Security is statutorily barred from adding to the deficit: the program can’t add to the gap between revenue and spending. Plus, one very simple tweak — lifting the cap on the payroll tax so that it is applied to more of the wealthiest Americans’ income — would ensure that Social Security can pay full benefits for more than 70 years.

As Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has said, “Social Security has not added a single penny, not a dime, a nickel, a dollar to the budget problems we have. Never has. And for the next 30 years, it won’t do that.” But Ryan consistently raises alarm about the program in an effort to promote his desire to privatize it entirely. In this instance, Raddatz helped him spread his misinformation with her abysmal framing of the question.

The Affordable Care Act has extended the solvency of Medicare from 2016 to 2024.   The threat to Medicare, further, comes not from the program itself but from the escalating cost of health care, which has long been higher in the U.S.A. than in any other nation of the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (chart, from OECD using mostly 2008 data, below). Administrative costs of private insurance are 17% of revenue; of Medicare, they are approximately 2%. Partly as a result, Medicare spending grew at an annual rate of 4.3% between 1997 and 2009 while private insurance premiums grew 6.5% per year, according to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

The good news is that, unlike a Romney-Ryan administration, a second Obama administration apparently will not privatize Social Security or replace Medicare with a voucher.  Biden on Thursday emphasized

We will not, though, be part of any voucher plan eliminating -- the voucher says, "Mom, when you're -- when you're 65, go out there, shop for the best insurance you can get. You're out of Medicare." You can buy back in if you want with this voucher, which will not keep pace -- will not keep pace with health care costs. Because if it did keep pace with health care costs, there would be no savings. That's why they go the voucher. They -- we will be no part of a voucher program or the privatization of Social Security.

The bad news is that the Vice-President was responding to Raddatz's query whether "if it could help solve the problem, why not very slowly raise the Medicare eligibility age by two years...?"  Rather than explain that the cost of health care- not Medicare- is the problem to be "solved," Biden hinted that President Obama is open to increasing the eligibility age for gaining access to the program, presumably as part of a Grand Bargain.  He had begun his response with

Look, I was there when we did that with Social Security in 1983. I was one of eight people sitting in the room that included Tip O'Neill negotiating with President Reagan. We all got together and everybody said, as long as everybody's in the deal, everybody's in the deal, and everybody is making some sacrifice, we can find a way.

The PPACA should have included a public option.  Better yet would have been scrapping it entirely for a single payer system, preferably one framed as "Medicare For All."   Now, the only major non- right wing party appears to be preparing us for an increase in the eligibility age, thus decreasing access and reducing its lifetime benefit.

Recognizing that Obama-Biden has unwisely decided not to make "an unequivocal promise not to cut benefits," Firedoglake's Jon Walker argues "Effectively, Obama has decided he would rather lose the election with his vague message on entitlements than win the election, if it means using tactics that would significantly restrict his ability to cut Social Security in his second term. This should make any actual liberal very nervous."





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Roadkill Ryan


Allowed an opportunity by Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski noted of Representative Paul Ryan, Vice President Biden "ate him for dinner, then spit him out on the table."

Grudgingly, much of the mainstream media is acknowledging that if it was to be assessed "on points," the vice-presidential debate last night was won by Joe Biden.  Yes, on points: and in Super Bowl 20 (1986) in New Orleans, the Chicago Bears won "on points," 46-10; in Super Bowl 35 fifteen years later (but you knew that), the Baltimore Ravens beat the New York Giants (slim solace for a Philadelphia Eagles fan), 34-7.     The front-page of the venerable The Philadelphia Inquirer (whose editorial board skews Democratic) was not atypical with its headline last Thursday "Romney Puts Heat on Obama" and today, "Biden, Ryan spur on issues."

As Salon's Joan Walsh noted, "the pearl-clutchers might have the vapors" as "pundits squabbled about Biden’s delivery, and Fox’s Chris Wallace declared 'I’ve never seen a candidate as disrespectful as Biden.'"   Chris might want to watch the face-offs on some of the Sunday morning news talks shows, perhaps even his own, at which time he might notice politicians chuckling at the statements of the guy from the other party (not if "the other guy" is a woman, however; that would be considered disrespectful).

Despite being the deer caught in the headlights, Ryan did try, at one point inserting his rehearsed line "I think the vice president very well knows that sometimes the words don't come out of your mouth the right way."  But Biden immediately responded "But I always say what I mean.  And so does Romney."

That hits at a major electoral strength of the Republican- that he really, couldn't mean all those extreme, radical things he has said.   Buzz Bissinger, author of Friday Night Lights, A Prayer for the City, and described here (in an otherwise magnificent take-down) as "the brilliant, narrative journalist," recently endorsed Romney.  He reasoned "I believe that Romney's move to the center is not yet another flip-flop sleight of hand, perhaps naively.  I believe he will send to the political Guantanamo those dirty old white men of the party ready to bomb Iran."  

Those sleights-of-hand are proving convenient for Romney, and Slate's Dave Weigel explains Bissinger is "a low information voter who happens to be extraordinarily good at writing.  He saw Romney in the debate, and saw Obama, and said 'Jesus, really, that's the president right now?' There are millions of people like Bissinger."

(Bissinger, entertaining but not very informative, describes himself as "the afternoon talk show host for CBS WPHT-AM in Philadelphia."  He is, in fact, co-host of "The Buzz Bissinger Show with Steve Martorano" from 3:00 p.m.-7:00 p.m.   Michael Smerconish, who has a periodic gig substituting for Chris Matthews on Hardball, holds down the 12:00-3:00 p.m. slot on WPHT and is syndicated nationally.  He is "the" afternoon talk show host on the station.)

In part, Democrats, or liberal pundits, have themselves to blame.    Though most Republicans are reacting to Ryan's failure in much the same way as Wallace of GOP TV, Obama partisans responded to the President's failure a week earlier by publicly panicking while admitting that it would bolster Romney's campaign.   It might not be surprising, then, that there are only a few mainstream journalists, such as Brzezinski and Chuck Todd (who commented "this was Joe Biden's debate; Paul Ryan was at it"), who are acknowledging what they saw.  

Meanwhile, more are bending over backwards to avoid offending the GOP. Otherwise, they might otherwise be frozen out by Republicans, as trade associations and corporate lobbyists were by Tom DeLay as a tactic of his K Street Project.   Or they might be subjected to intimidation, as Mitt Romney effectively displayed against Jim Lehrer in the first debate.  Hopefully, the public recognized, as journalism professor Allan Schroeder wrote at CNN's site, "For much of the debate, the super-charged veep kept his opponent in a defensive crouch.  At times it looked as if Ryan was afraid Biden might ground him and take away the car keys."






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Slaughter In Kentucky



Paul Ryan, as this is written at 11:17 p.m. eastern time, is taking a shower.   He has to get all the dirt and grime off after Joe Biden wiped the floor with him at Centre College in Danville, Kentucky.

Consider the common critique of the Obama-Romney debate.   Romney was engaged and enjoying himself; Obama detached, looking as if he was bored; Romney plain spoken, Obama caught up in bland detail; Romney, optimistic, Obama mundane;  Romney in control, Obama dominated.

Now substitute Biden for Romney and Ryan for Obama.  Now double it.   In election cycles past, Republicans and the news media have happily trumped the "gloom and doom Democrats" meme.  But tonight (debate transcript here) it was Democrat Joe Biden who pointed out

And I've never met two guys who're more down on America across the board. We're told everything's going bad. There are 5.2 million new jobs, private-sector jobs. We need more, but 5.2 million -- if they'd get out of the way, if they'd get out of the way and let us pass the tax cut for the middle class, make it permanent, if they get out of the way and pass the -- pass the jobs bill, if they get out of the way and let us allow 14 million people who are struggling to stay in their homes because their mortgages are upside down, but they never missed a mortgage payment, just get out of the way.

Stop talking about how you care about people. Show me something. Show me a policy. Show me a policy where you take responsibility.

Eugene Robinson, commenting at 12:25 a.m. (eastern) summarized succinctly: "They want to be critical, but they don't want to do anything different."  Only Joe Biden could have said it as well, and he may have.

Characteristically, Ryan stumbled into a discussion of the Administration's stimulus program, slamming "this. $90 billion in green pork to campaign contributors and special interest groups," to which Biden responded

And I love my friend here. I -- I'm not allowed to show letters but go on our website, he sent me two letters saying, "By the way, can you send me some stimulus money for companies here in the state of Wisconsin?" We sent millions of dollars. You know..

After Ryan admitted to moderator Martha Raddatz that he had asked for stimulus funds, Biden added

I love that. I love that. This was such a bad program and he writes me a letter saying -- writes the Department of Energy a letter saying, "The reason we need this stimulus, it will create growth and jobs." His words. And now he's sitting here looking at me.

It is a truism of American politics that Republicans hold the advantage on taxes.  Not so on Thursday night as the V.P. explained

We want to extend permanently the middle-class tax cut for -- permanently, from the Bush middle-class tax cut. These guys won't allow us to. You know what they're saying? We say "let's have a vote -- let's have a vote on the middle-class tax cut and let's have a vote on the upper (ph) tax cut; let's go ahead and vote on it."

They're saying no. They're holding hostage the middle class tax cut to the super wealthy. And on top of that, they've got another tax cut coming that's $5 trillion that all of the studies point out will in fact give another $250 million -- yeah, $250,000 a year to those 120,000 families and raise taxes for people who are middle income with a child by $2,000 a year.

This is unconscionable. There is no need for this. The middle class got knocked on their heels. The great recession crushed them. They need some help now. The last people who need help are 120,000 families for another -- another $500 billion tax cut over the next 10 years.

The Wisconsin congressman was so out of his element, so flummoxed that he forgot to mention that in Charlotte on October 2, the Vice-President himself had remarked "How they can justify — how they can justify raising taxes on the middle class that's been buried the last four years. How in Lord's name can they justify raising their taxes with these tax cuts?"As Barack Obama failed to repeat during last week's debate some of Mr. Romney's most outrageous comments, so did Paul Ryan miss his golden opportunity.

And dominance was even more demonstrated when talk turned to Afghanistan.    After Ryan was unable to enunciate a clear policy, Biden asserted "That's why we should send Americans in to do the job, instead of the- you'd rather Americans be going in doing the job instead of the trainees."  Confused, Ryan stated "No. We are already sending Americans to do the job, but fewer of them.  That's the whole problem," to which Biden responded "That's right. We're sending in more Afghans to do the job.  Afghans to do the job."

The thoughtful, boy wonder of the Republican Party believes "the whole problem" is fewer Americans are being sent into combat.  That will go over so well with Independents.  

At another point, the Democrat argued "The last thing America needs is to get in another ground war in the Middle East, requiring tens of thousands, if not well over 100,000 American forces."     That hit the right note among Americans of almost all political stripes, suffering from battle fatigue and just plain tired of war.

Shortly after the debate concluded, NBC's Chuck Todd stated that Ryan had accomplished his objective, to "do no harm."   And sure, the nominee didn't blurt out a racial epithet, dribble, or burst into tears, though at times he appeared he was about to.   But Todd concluded accurately that Joe Biden "controlled the debate, controlled the agenda," and for now, that will do just fine.





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