US blogwatch: Did bruiser Joe manage to poll-axe Mitt’s man?

Democrats exasperated by President Obama’s feeble performance in last week’s TV debate got what they wanted last night: a bareknuckle fightback by an unashamed bruiser, vice-president Joe Biden. How much difference it now makes to the race is less clear.

This had been billed as a feisty contest between two aggressive players — though Biden was always the heavyweight to Mitt Romney’s running mate Paul Ryan. As Republican national committee chairman Reince Priebus quipped before the debate: “Joe Biden’s been doing this since the 1800s.”

Nate Silver’s tweeted verdict (@fivethirtyeight) is that it “probably won’t matter much — VP debates rarely do — but will test hypothesis that Romney Denver gains were soft.” A CNN instant poll of registered voters essentially made the candidates’ performances a tie, while a CBS poll of uncommitted voters put Biden well ahead, though as the huffingtonpost.com’s breakdown suggests, it’s hard to compare the polls’ methodologies.

Certainly it was an ill-tempered contest. Former George W Bush speechwriter David Frum (@davidfrum) tweeted: “Not even a second of fake cordiality post-debate. Talk about tone!”

Justin Green, who live-blogged the debate for thedailybeast.com, judged that “The Vice President won this debate…the guy’s a natural,” but he concedes that “Paul Ryan’s no pushover.” The Dailykos.com’s Markos Moulitsas (@markos) is more representative of Left-wing reaction, exulting on Twitter: “So cons… you liked the guy who looked like road kill?”

But the comment from Right-wing Weeklystandard.com editor Bill Kristol is fair enough: “Joe Biden was aggressive, condescending, and shamelessly demagogic. Paul Ryan was earnest, youthful, and perhaps a bit over-scripted.”

In the obsessive picking-over of such contests among the US commentariat, there are already arguments over who won on key issues, especially foreign policy. Ryan pushed hard on Libya, a weak point for Obama. Biden responded bluntly: “With all due respect, that’s a bunch of malarkey.”

Biden’s aggression has sparked outrage in the Right-wing blogosphere. But more damaging, perhaps, was his smirking. As Politico.com’s Glenn Thrush comments: “A little Biden can go a long way, and this was Joe by the gallon, smirking and shouting down a more measured — if at times robotic — Ryan.”

The Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin (@JRubinBlogger) was blunter, tweeting: “Biden’s laughing is losing the debate — obnoxious.”

It won’t transform the race. Taegan Goddard blogs (politicalwire.com) that Biden “had the primary goal of firing up Democrats after President Obama’s lacklustre performance last week. He did that and more.” But Ryan’s task was simply to safeguard Romney’s recent poll gains. The new polls in the next few days will show if he succeeded.