Paul Ryan vs. Joe Biden is Being Underestimated for What Happened

I have been off my blogging game as of late, having spent two weeks out of town on business and being a little dizzy. But I plan to get back into a rhythm for the next few weeks. Real quickly, though, a few comments are in order regarding that complete meltdown we witnessed from Joe Biden the other night, and the extremely poised and steady performance we saw from Paul Ryan.People are massively under-estimating the political significance of the VP debate. I have four reasons for this. I will say that it had no possible way of being as significant as the Presidential debates, and particularly what Romney did to Obama (as well as what Obama did to Obama) the week prior. However, it is my political opinion that what happened in the VP debate Thursday was much larger than people think for the following reasons:A - Biden's behavior went over indescribably bad with women voters, and I mean really, really bad. Men are often so rude themselves they may not have minded a 70-year old man acting like an 8-year old child, but many women are deeply offended by the way Biden acted, and like it or not, undecideds absolutely move votes on such thingsB - Biden's behavior is all ANYONE is talking about, where substantively the alternative could have been the whole "Ryan is bad for the middle class" nonsense. Biden is more capable on the subjects than one would think, and he didn't allow the narrative to be "Biden goes toe to toe intellectually with Ryan". Major missed opportunity.C - Ryan did assert himself very well on foreign policy, and this was a surprise even to many of us who adore Paul RyanD - The scandalous denial that Obama/Biden knew about the request for more security. This issue may die out, but if I were a betting man, I would think Benghazi has a better chance of being Watergate than Clinton renting out Lincoln's bedroom (which I still think was an under-rated scandal)Those four points to me add up to Thursday night being probably half as big a victory as Romney got last week, and what Romney got last week was no small victory. A lot can and will happen in the next 25 days, and I suppose the final 10 days may end up having to feature some last-minute despicable Mormon-bashing by Team Axelrod. Of course, there are also two more debates. But right now, I feel good. Really good.