I made a point of listening only. Originally, I thought Biden had the advantage but his laughing/mocking/interruptions became insufferable. It was as if he thought he’d win by speaking faster and louder than Ryan.
Eventually, Ryan’s smooth, calm sound took the lead. By the end, especially after the “Catholic/abortion” question, Biden sounded like a dithering fool, like his boss, with ahh’s and ummm’s several times per sentence. Also, Biden’s close was rather pathetic, while Ryan’s was strong.
So this radio listener ends up giving the edge to Ryan.
To me, for most of the debate, neither man seemed to “project” as a strong leader, to take over if the Pres’ is down or out. To me that gives Biden the advantage, since he IS already “in”. Biden was more “forceful”, but it came across as arrogant, to me.
I was SO wanting Ryan to smack down Biden on the Embassy Security issue: Yesterday, in the Congressional hearing, Obama’s own Undersecretary clearly stated that security decisions for Libya were NOT constrained by funding (shutting up a couple of the Dems who’d tried to make hay with that funding issue.)
Further (from the hearing), a General Hamm, I believe, offered the Embassy Security officer essentially anything they needed for security, and that assistance was (is) totally independent of State Dept. funding. State turned it down.
I so wanted to have Ryan say to Biden “If our ‘intelligence’ was still telling the Administration that the killings were due to a video, several days after everyone knew what had really happened, then what in God’s name has this administration done to our intelligence agencies?
I could go on, but most here likely had similar thoughts in many areas.
In their closing remarks, however, Ryan clearly made a better presentation than Biden, so hopefully the last impression will be the one people remember. :-)