Wow! You must have been tuned to a different channel than me and most other observers.

TVD is way off the mark on this debate, unlike the first Obama-Romney debate.
First of all Martha Raddatz did an excellent job, holding her own with two tough birds, keeping them reasonably in line and asking good and spontaneous followup questions. Where TVD gets off saying she showed her ignorance is beyond me. She's probably forgotten more about foreign and military and national security affairs than TVD ever knew. Give us a break, Ted.
Second, this was no draw. Vice President Biden creamed Congressman Ryan on substance. Ryan looked extremely callow, particularly on foreign and military affairs and surprisingly even on domestic budget issues. I question how many folks can honestly say that after watching the debate they'd be perfectly comfortable with Ryan suddenly becoming president.
Third, I agree with TVD that I wish Biden had restrained himself on the exasperated smiles and interruptions.
But frankly Biden's exasperated expressions were understandable because Ryan was trotting out the same untrue or half-true stuff Mitt Romney put out in the first debate that has been thoroughly debunked by the fact-checkers ("apologizing for America," massive fraud in the green energy program, death panels, middle-class tax cuts, "small business" being affected if the upper-end Bush tax cuts expire, claiming Medicare vouchers wouldn't shift big new costs to seniors, etc. etc.). Ryan even added a new whopper that took Biden and Raddatz completely offguard -- claiming that Romney has not proposed $2 trillion in military spending increases. That's already been debunked by the NY Times fact checkers.
Fourth, Biden did not express "disdain" for the rich, he said they needed to pay a little more in taxes and didn't need any more tax cuts.
Fifth, TVD refers to the Dems' supposedly "harsh, polarizing" statements after the first Obama-Romney debate. What the Dems largely said was that the Romney who showed up at the debate did not resemble the Romney who had been campaigning for two years in terms of his policy positions. And that charge was largely confirmed by the major media fact checkers. As I suggested before, TVD might want to read the fact checks after that first debate and after this debate. As Biden said tonight, facts do matter.

Here's a much much better take on the job Martha Raddatz did tonight:
http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/11/in-praise-of-martha-raddatz/?hp

I think the previous comments are missing Ted's underlying point. He's really just doing a super-duper subtly sarcastic send-up of the Fox News take on the Biden-Ryan debate. I mean, for Ted to actually believe this was a draw, he'd have to ignore so much of what actually happe.... wait a minute. Oh dear.

If anyone should have recognized how effective Biden was, I would have thought that TVD would have. I'm not the first to note this, but Biden was 2 things Pres. Obama wasn't in his first debate performance: (1) Happy and (2) a Warrior.

The Vice President did everything he needed to to engage the Democratic base and to persuade the few undecideds that are left, as the CBS post-debate poll demonstrated.

Plus, Martha Raddattz demonstrated the opposite of showing "relative ignorance." She was sharp, articulate and in charge: the opposite of Jim Lehrer. No wonder Karl Rove tweeted after the debate that he "misses Jim Lehrer."

Thanks for the overnight comments. I've since watched the debate, start to finish, a second time. Here are some afterthoughts, mainly going to the debaters' style.

In the end, the debate was mostly about Biden. I wondered Thursday evening if Biden realized the degree to which he appeared overbearing and discourteous. There also were places where his facial expressions did not match what was being said. I've now concluded that this was a calculated strategy meant to put the Obama-Biden ticket back on the offensive, by whatever means. even if it meant abandoning civility. In football terms, Biden blitzed on every play.

I've known and observed Joe Biden since he first came to the capital, very young and just having lost his wife and a child in a tragic accident. He can be hyper-aggressive and seemingly on steroids but I had not expected to see that persona at an event where independent and undecided voters were looking for other qualities. Partisan Democrats, disappointed by Obama's performance last week, no doubt were energized by the Biden approach. But a price will be attached to it. Among other things, it also will energize partisan Republicans and will provide a point of departure for Romney in next Tuesday's presidential-candidate debate.

Ryan's performance was OK by traditional national-debate standards. He made the points he came to make. But he failed to adjust to Biden's take-no-prisoners offensive and thus came across as polite and substantive but too passive. If they think back on the debate as a whole, most viewers, I suspect, mainly will think of Biden.

I've coordinated debate preparation for several Democratic presidential candidates. First advice to all of them: Be strong but respectful. Be tough on issues but personally courteous and civil toward your opponent.

Biden's performance caused him to both gain and lose points. Fans are saying "Sock it to 'em, Joe." Others will ask: "What the heck was he doing?" In any case, the campaign now returns to the Presidential candidates and what they say and do from this point forward.

When Romney clearly won the first debate with a very aggressive attitude, interrupting on many occasions and attacking strongly, it was called "leadership" by many on the right. When Biden does the same he's "discourteous."

TVD still fails to acknowledge the issue of fact versus b.s. His analysis is all about style but facts matter, as we discovered in Iraq. He claims Ryan was "substantive" but I would not encourage anyone to sniff the substance that came out of his mouth last night. TVD, how about some substantive analysis rather than this lightweight stuff you're putting out? Am how about acknowledging how wrong you were about Martha Raddatz's performance as moderator?

Did we watch the same debate? I thought Martha Raddatz did a magnificent job. I've watched the full debate twice. After the second viewing, I am even more convinced that Biden was the clear winner. I did not consider Biden either overbearing or discourteous. He appropriately called out his opponents clear misstatements and distortions. I wouldn't have him do otherwise.

Will this debate move the polls at all. probably. I expect more than a few disappointed Democrats to move back into the Obama column. I also expect female voters to react to the abortion question in the debate restoring the gender gap that briefly closed after the first presidential debate.

I concur with TVD, particularly his follow-up comments.

VP debates have little or no impact on the election, but Ryan did what he had to do... not make any major blunders. He was respectful.. even when he was being talked over by Both Biden and Martha Raddatz... and tried to stick to his topic and the format.

As a genuine Independent, however, I thought Joe Biden came off as being downright comical. He reminded me of the high school class clown sitting in the back of the classroom making faces at the teacher. This always got lots of giggles at the time, but most of those people ended up pumping gas for the rest of their lives.

But this goofy class clown somehow became our Vice President.

Can't look at east coast and midwest style through a Seattle passive agressive lens folks. It's exactly like expressions one sees in tough business battles where the experienced grey hair quite rightly is schooling the wet behind the ears kid who, rahter than answering the question, pontificates by quoting irrelevent passges from ideologial tomes.

Joe's expressions got me on his side. The polling of undecideds that I can find today seems to be between neutral and trended towards Biden.

A final, updating comment in this stream. CNN reports its national polling showed 48 percent of voters giving Ryan a debate edge last night and 44 percent giving the nod to Biden. The sample was slightly tilted toward the GOP, CNN reports, so that meant it probably was a draw. A larger national sample might have yielded another result.

I don't place much store in such polls. A similar poll after the Obama-Romney debate showed nearly three-quarters of viewers thought
Romney was the winner. My own assessment was that Romney had a slight advantage in the debate but no more than that.

The point: Polls are brief snapshots in time. They do not measure
delayed effects of events or trends which may not yet be showing up.
I do believe Biden came out of last night's debate as the focal point of that debate, for better or worse, depending on one's opinion.
He personally is now a campaign issue in himself.

National candidates need to consider that they continually are drawing pictures of themselves for the electorate. This is a difficult time financially, economically, and in foreign affairs for the United States. None of the four candidates should want to draw a picture of himeelf which casts doubt on his seriousness or capacity to govern large mindedly. I believe Obama, for instance, will have a hard time in the Tuesday event if he believes his weakness in the first debate was simply that he was not sufficiently "aggressive." He appears, however, to be getting advice to that effect.

Several foreign issues got unexpected exposure last night. For what it is worth, I believe foreign policy/national security issues are Romney's principal vulnerability. A serious examination of those issues, before a national audience, should benefit Obama---but not if he leaves the impression that "Romney is lying" is his principal theme.
Biden could have done better with these last night but, especially in the case of Libya, made statements that Republicans are certain to challenge. The last two debates need not be academic seminars. But
they should leave room for detailed statements and answers givng voters a better understanding of who knows what and how much.

Another commitment, by the way, will prevent me from watching the Tuesday debate. I'll thus not write about it Tuesday night. But I'll be back again for the last one and no doubt will write something in-between.

It is actually possible to record TV events, TVD.

Right you are, sarah. But I won't return home until quite late and would not be able to view the event, and write about it, until early the next a.m., by which time a flood of analysis would already have
overtaken you. I write immediately after the debates to give Crosscut readers a) an immediate take on what I thought happened, and b) to avoid the noise and clutter following closely behind.

So I'll write something later in the week, to set the stage for the final debate, and then will do another right-after piece immediately after it ends.

I like what Matt Taibbi wrote about the debate ("Joe Biden Was Right to Laugh") - http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/the-vice-presidential-debate-joe-biden-was-right-to-laugh-20121012