rdmcandie wrote:
Laying out several key issues, discussing how they compare to the alternative, and then discussing how you plan to implement and pay for them is substance.
Which is what Ryan did. Repeatedly. Biden did not do this at all. Biden doesn't have a plan, much less details for one. I suspect that fact was missed by most people claiming that Biden won on substance. What happened was that Biden wasn't challenged on substance because he never offered anything in the first place, so the moderator couldn't ask him for specifics of his plan.
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Yes. The moderator asked for more detail of Ryan, and none of Biden. Think about that.
Because Ryan was not detailing his points.
No. Because Ryan put a proposal on the table. Biden did not. It's always easy to attack the other guys plan when you don't have one. I'll say again: Think about that.
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Ryan: We want to offer 5 trillion in new tax cuts to everyone!.
Mod: How will you pay for this?
Ryan: Oh we will cut some stuff!
(What stuff?)
Ryan
never said that. What he said was that the claim that their plan would cut tax revenue by $5T is false and has been debunked by several different sources. So when the moderator asks him how his plan will pay for a loss of revenue that he has insisted his plan wont create, she's not asking for details, she's promoting an Obama campaign talking point.
Let me again point out the
Complex Question Fallacy. For those who still don't get it, it's when you ask a question which contains within it an assumption that the answerer does not agree with. The correct response to this sort of fallacy is *not* to answer the question, but to challenge the assumption within it (which Ryan did by stating that the $5T number was incorrect). If he answers the question, he's acknowledging the assumption. He *can't* explain how their tax plan will account for $5T in cuts because their plan will not result in $5T in cuts. That's not a failure of the plan, or his understanding of the issue, but him correctly responding to an unfair question.
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Biden: We are going to continue pushing for tax cuts for the middle class, we are going to increase taxes on the super wealthy to compensate.
See the difference? (probably not.)
And she asked him for specifics, right? She asked him exactly what cutoff defines "middle class" and "rich" in that tax plan, right (hint: It's not "super wealthy", it's $250k/year)? And she asked what tax cuts they're aiming at the middle class. And she called him on the whole "extending existing tax rates isn't really a tax cut". No, she didn't. She gave him a pass on all of that.
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I'll ask again: What substance did Biden present at the debate?
If you have it DVR'd I suggest you watch it again, of course it won't matter because you would be unable to watch it without bias. A luxury that I suppose I have as a Canadian.
So you can't answer. Got it.
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Biden offered substance in every point he made.
Then it should be trivially easy for you to give us some examples. Here, I'll
make it easy for you Hell, just the first section shows a glaring difference. Biden is like "We got Bin Laden, Rar!". Ryan talks about a Status of Forces agreement with Iraq, which was supposed to be in place, but the Administration failed to get before with withdrawing. He countered rhetoric "they just wanted to stay in Iraq" with facts.
I could go point by point with how Biden failed to really respond to what Ryan said, instead clinging to a handful of talking points, but you can read for yourself. Biden looked better on the screen, so for those who think that's the most important thing they thought he did great. But when you look at what he actually said, and how limited it was (and often completely off the mark), Ryan won "on substance". Ryan had his facts straight. He brought up many more relevant points in each area. In the defense portion, he talked about several failures of foreign policy, with specifics. Biden says that's malarky, is asked for specifics and then proceeds to toss out a series of talking points which didn't even address what Ryan had said.
There were some areas Biden did a bit better, but overall, Ryan absolutely presented more substance.