“My father was my father,” says Beau.

DANVILLE, Ky. — While the real Joe Biden was debating Paul Ryan onstage, his online persona went into overdrive.

"Couple drops of Visine and nobody will ever know," tweeted "Diamond Joe" from the OnionPolitics account. "Have some debate bullshit I got to do tonight."

He had, according to The Onion, "put on his lucky debate suit"; then, "Biden Unleashes Torrent of Vomit On Debate Stage."

The stereotype of goofy Onion Joe is one that's stuck for some time, but none of it was on display in Danville. This was far from the stereotype run amok who cuddles with biker ladies and gives people fake names for fun. Biden didn't make any serious gaffes, and didn't come across as particularly fun, instead turning on his other persona: angry, populist Biden. He frequently interrupted his opponent and mocked him by smiling and laughing at what he said.

This left Democrats pleased, though having to defend a performance that seemed overly aggressive at times, and Republicans figuring out how to attack an adversary they've tended to criticize as unserious, not formidable.

"My father was my father," Beau Biden, son of the Vice President and attorney general of Delaware, told reporters afterwards.

"I think some of the things the Congressman said, it's difficult ot sit there and see some of the things that come out of the Congressman's mouth," Biden said. "My father was respectful.

Maryland Congressman Chris Van Hollen, who played the part of Paul Ryan during debate prep, wouldn't say whether or not the laughing and smiling were planned.

"Joe Biden came out swinging as the champion for the middle class, I think it was a clear win," Van Hollen said.

"I think the main issue is to focus on the substance of this," Van Hollen said, describing Biden as "passionate."

"He's a human being and there were some remarks that Paul Ryan made that he found astounding and incredible, and I think the American people would agree with him," Van Hollen said.

Obama campaign deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter echoed him, calling Biden "one hundred percent authentic."

Ryan, she said, "talked like he was looking at a bunch of index cards."

Meanwhile, Republicans there to spin the press afterwards accused Biden of being too aggressive.

"The Vice President goes over the top sometimes and I think he did tonight," former Missouri senator and Romney advisor Jim Talent said. "Obviously the voters have got to decide, but every time I was prepped for debate I was told, be careful about interrupting too much, dont laugh at your opponent, show respect for the format and your opponent, and there were times when he didn't."

"I think the constant interruptions and the smirks and that sort of thing are not going to be helpful in terms of the way undecided voters see the debate tonight," said South Dakota senator John Thune.

But they didn't have an opening to accuse Biden of having gaffed, or of being a joke. For that, the only option tonight is Onion Joe:

Both candidates took time to watch their running mates debate tonight.

Image by Evan Vucci / AP

Via: whitehouse

Raddatz not only upstaged last week's lackluster performance by Jim Lehrer, she was the debate's star.

Image by Pool / Reuters

The Vice Presidential Debate's winner? Not a candidate, but the debate's moderator, ABC's Martha Raddatz.

Raddatz asked questions on a wide span of issues, ranging from foreign policy to abortion, and pressed the candidates to be exacting in their answers. "Be specific," she pushed Biden when she didn't find his answer to a question on Libya to be sufficient.

She also had a pretty easy act to follow. Last week's presidential debate moderator, Jim Lehrer, was called "unconscious" and "a disaster." His pushover performance even inspired a "Silent Jim Lehrer" Twitter feed.

"She did a good job. She kept it focused without interfering too much. I felt like the questions she posed were important questions - very relevant to the concern of most Americans," Ted Strickland, Ohio's former Democratic governor, said after the debate.

Lehrer, as Strickland put it, "allowed [last week's] debate to become unfocused." He also took issue with the fact that, "There was no discussion of issues that are related to women — like equal pay for equal work. There was no discussion of the choice issue."

Even Michael Steel, a spokesman for Paul Ryan said he "thought she was clearly more assertive," even if the resulting answers were "no more disciplined."

The pro-Raddatz sentiment played out on Twitter — dozens of users posted tweets asking if they could vote for the moderator come November. "Raddatz for prez."

Political reporters and commentators largely agreed:

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Romney aides fought to define Biden — and the smile that dominated the debate stage — as condescending and totally insane. “Bordering on unhinged.”

Image by John Gress / Reuters

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A central focus of Thursday's debate.

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“We did not know they wanted more security there,” the vice president says. A hearing this week suggested the opposite.

WASHINGTON — During the vice presidential debate Thursday, Vice President Joe Biden said the administration "did not know" that personnel working at the American embassy in Libya had requested more security before the deadly attack on Sept. 11.

As Biden was discussing the attack, Martha Raddatz, the debate moderator, cut in.

"And they wanted more security there," Raddatz said.

"But we weren't told they wanted more security there," Biden responded. "We did not know they wanted more security there."

That assertion runs counter to evidence and testimonies that were presented at a House Oversight Committee hearing Wednesday, where the committee released five memos requesting additional security, and witnesses from the State Department confirmed that those requests had been denied.

During the hearing, Eric Nordstrom, who was in charge of security in Libya for the State Department, recalled his frustration when he tried to request more agents in Benghazi. He told a regional director, he said, that the toughest part of his job was "not the hardships, it’s not the gunfire, it’s not the threats. It’s dealing, and fighting, against the people, programs, and personnel who are supposed to be supporting me."

He added, "For me, the Taliban is on the inside of the building."

Medium-sized ideas, and not too much detail, on display in Kentucky.

Image by Rick Wilking / Reuters

DANVILLE, Ky. — In the spin room after the vice presidential debate Thursday night, Republican operatives gamely described the face-off as a battle between good ideas and bad ideas; common sense and nonsense; forward-looking solutions and backward-looking defensiveness.

One thing it was not: a defining battle between conservatism and liberalism.

Paul Ryan's addition to the Republican ticket in August was supposed to reshape the presidential race into a sharp clash of ideologies — a battle of ideas that would present the electorate with a clear choice between the free-market ideals Ryan championed in the House, and the Obama administration's government-centered populism.

The Wall Street Journal defined the conservative enthusiasm for the Ryan pick at the time with a glowing editorial:

More than any other politician, the House budget chairman has defined those stakes well as a generational choice about the role of government and whether America will once again become a growth economy or sink into interest-group dominated decline.

But after a short, buzzy week of excitement immediately following his pick, Ryan's reputation as a conservative movement leader was buried under a pile of disciplined talking points and running-mate grunt work. After effectively vanishing from the national stage, Ryan re-emerged Thursday not as the intellectual leader of the right, but as passable debater with a slightly crooked necktie.

The debate that took place — with Vice President Biden repeatedly cutting him off, and Ryan talking around specific questions about the bold budget-cutting plan he introduced in the House — was nothing like the crusading wonk-fest many Republicans expected from him months ago.

Romney campaign policy director Lanhee Chen, for example, praised Ryan's defense of the campaign's Medicare position as "masterful," but rejected the notion that Thursday's debate represented a generation-defining battle of ideas.

Similarly, Ryan's chief spokesman, Michael Steel, demurred when he was asked whether the debate provided a contest between conservatism and liberalism.

"I really think of it as backward-looking versus forward-looking," he offered.

Russ Schriefer, senior Romney campaign strategist, said Ryan didn't distance himself from his conservative principles, but that most voters didn't view the debate as a clash of ideologies.

"I mean, I can see it as that, but I think the viewer at home isn't necessarily looking at it through an ideological prism," he said. "I think they're looking at it as whose ideas make the most sense, and I think that the Romney/Ryan ideas make a lot more sense."

When Social Security came up, Ryan spent much of his time insisting that his plan did not include a "voucher" — he preferred "guaranteed benefit" — and stressing that under his proposals, the program wouldn't change for many years. Rather than fiercely advocate a restructuring of Medicare, he tried to hit the Obama campaign for "taking $716 billion out of Medicare to spend on Obamacare."

And when it came time to talk up his own record in Congress, one of Ryan's chief selling points was that he worked on a plan that was "put together with a prominent Democrat Senator from Oregon."

A wise nod toward independents who like bipartisanship, perhaps — but not exactly the rhetoric of a conservative hero.

Ryan held his own. But Biden stopped the bleeding.

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden (L) and Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan shake hands at the conclusion of the vice presidential debate in Danville, Kentucky, October 11, 2012.

Image by Pool / Reuters

DANVILLE, Ky. — Joe Biden’s dominant, if sneering, performance in Thursday’s debate stabilized a shaken Obama campaign and put the full pressure of the presidential campaign back on the President of the United States.

Biden offered the forceful defense of his Administration that Barack Obama failed to deliver last week, with a harsh, patronizing edge that seemed calculated to restore the faith of the demoralized Democratic base.

“Stopping the momentum is a win,” said Chris Lehane, a former aide to Al Gore, who described the Democrat as “smoking Joe Biden.”

The Romney campaign sought to focus on Biden’s patronizing demeanor, something that was more striking inside the debate hall at Centre College.

Inside the debate hall, Biden appeared more combative — reaching out toward Ryan as he cut him off, and smirking as the congressman answered questions. The image wasn’t quite captured on television, where Biden’s more endearing side prevailed.

Ryan did his ticket no harm with a careful and steady cut and thrust, sometime hard to follow though Biden’s noises and gesticulations, and did no harm to his own prospects, should Obama be re-elected.

But the stakes were higher for the Democrats. Biden has earned a reputation for straying from the script, to occasionally disastrous effect, and campaign officials were unable to conceal a level of nerves in the run-up to the debate. President Obama, meanwhile, had horrified his party with a weak and stumbling performance, and the party faced the threat that donors and activists would feel that the president and his running mate were giving them little to work for.

Democrats said they were elated that Obama’s core supporters had gotten what they wanted.

“I think that a lot of people saw the passion that Joe Biden has,” said Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, who chairs the Democratic Governors Association and was left in the spin room almost entirely along last week to defend Obama on cable television.

“For moms and dads and people that have been volunteering on the Obama campaign, I think they were watching at home and saying, ‘Thank goodness Joe Biden is mixing it up with these guys and not letting them get away with spewing their stuff without getting challenged,” he said.

There was no reason to believe, on the other hand, that the debate had dramatically changed the race’s underlying dynamic in the wake of last week's blowout. A series of state polls have suggested that a race that threatened to slip entirely out of Romney’s reach is again competitive, with new leads in Florida, Virginia, and Colorado.

Biden, said Lehane, “likely could never be this aggressive and passionate as a presidential candidate — but as a proxy it was effective, as defined as arresting the momentum.”

Republicans did not try to cast the debate as a hands-down win for the sometimes-tentative Ryan, but argued that he did well enough in a race that appears to be moving their direction, with one recent Florida poll showing Romney with a lead in the key state. The running mate did exactly what the campaign hoped, said Romney policy advisor Lanhee Chen, by laying out the “bold choice” in this election.

"Nothing tonight changed the underlying dynamic of the race,” said Michael Steel, a Ryan spokesman, adding that the election is always going to be about the person at the top of the ticket.

“First do no harm,” said another top Romney aide. “They needed a knockout and didn't get it.”

Rep. Brad Sherman lays hands on Rep. Howard Berman in the bitter Los Angeles race. They're both Democrats!

Source: youtube.com

One of the bitterest Congressional races in the country descended into physical confrontation at Pierce College in Woodland Hills, California Thursday night.

Rep. Brad Sherman and Rep. Howard Berman — each fighting for his political life in a redrawn Los Angeles-area district — face each other in November in California's open primary system.

Sherman is seen shouting at Berman in a video sent BuzzFeed by the Berman campaign.

"Don't get in my face. Stay away from me," Sherman, the larger man, yells, and then puts his arm around Berman's shoulders.

The politicians were then separated by a deputy from Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.

Pretend you saw the whole 90 minutes by watching this.

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The running mate settles into the bottom of the ticket. Joe Biden angles for the corner office.

Image by Matt Sullivan / Reuters

LEXINGTON, Ky. — The Denver debate last week finally made Mitt Romney the leader of his party and gave him his clearest shot at the White House — and put Paul Ryan in his place.

Ryan’s unusually heavy schedule — in comparison to Romney’s — took to the backburner for two rounds of debate prep. And where Ryan had been the more substantive of the pair through the first six weeks of the ticket as Romney fundraised, Romney’s foreign policy speech stole the headlines. Romney barnstormed through rare three-event days, while Ryan went unmissed.

Thursday's debate marked Ryan’s settling into the running mate’s traditional role: Less superstar than junior partner. It’s a role that two recent Republican campaigns had seemed to erase, with the heavyweight Dick Cheney followed by the controversial superstar Sarah Palin giving the position an unusual heft. But Biden has served in a fairly conventional, secondary role, and Paul Ryan settled Thursday into that position: Less Cheney or Palin than, say, a slight and wonky Al Gore.

Ryan’s role was to stump for his boss, to absorb attacks on his own record without complaint or rebuttal, and to reflect as many of them as possible back on the opposing ticket.

“Let me tell you about the Mitt Romney I know,” Ryan said during the debate when Biden pressed him on Romney’s New York Times editorial advocating bankruptcy for Detroit automakers. Ryan testified to Romney’s character by telling the story of Romney helping out a family that has two paralyzed children, celebrating Christmas with them and offering to pay for their college tuition.

Indeed, throughout the debate, as Biden sought to pin down the congressman on his specific policy positions, Ryan wouldn’t have it, defending his plan with Romney, and using his time to defend his running mate before himself.

For instance, Ryan let a scathing attack on his own request for stimulus funds, for instance, go essentially unrebutted — though it cuts to the core of his image as a principled anti-spending conservative.

When the topic turned to Libya, Ryan defended Romney’s early statement condemning “apologies” from the White House. But he ignored Biden’s counter-attack on his own record as a member of the House of Representatives, where he voted on a measure to cut $300 million from the diplomatic security budget.

Top campaign aides sought to downplay expectations for a fiery Ryan in the hours before the debate, noting they expected more fireworks from Biden. “[Ryan] didn’t want to become the story,” said an aide, who said Ryan practiced around a table mocked like the debate set and drilled how to avoid getting “sidetracked” by Biden.

“Our message last night was simple. The Romney plan offers a vision for the next four years,” said the aide, emphasizing the top of the ticket. “President Obama doesn’t.”

This was not just the absence of Ryan as the man of big ideas. It was also the end of his role as superstar who threatened to overshadow Romney. Ryan was careful and workmanlike, doing no harm to himself and creating openings for his ticket to exploit in the days ahead.

His selfless performance stood in sharp contrast to Biden’s sudden promotion. The Vice President did what Obama had failed to do last week, and enjoyed one of the finest hours of his political career. He made himself the toast of a party elite that had spent decades wincing when he opened his mouth — a hero of the base.

Biden attacked and attacked, and made the race all about Romney and Ryan, as though he were the nominee. Barack Obama was mentioned just once, and Biden — unlike Ryan — spent little time defending his running mate in particular.

In the post-debate spin room, Obama campaign manager Jim Messina ignored a question of why Obama had failed to make the case last week.

Last night’s debate “was about making sure everyone understood the clear difference in this election,” he said.

Soledad O'Brien goes after Redstate blogger Erick Erickson's opinion that debate moderator Martha Raddatz did an 'atrocious' job moderating the vice presidential debate in Kentucky. Erickson: “I think you're a journalists and journalists are going to give her cover. I thought she was horrible.”

Alexis Ohanian started Reddit, the self-proclaimed “front page of the internet.” Then he helped kill SOPA, the bill that threatened to destroy it. Now he's running for President. Of the whole thing.

Illustration by John Gara

It’s an unseasonably cold early October evening in Lincoln, Nebraska, and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian is giving his elevator pitch to a flustered but rapt woman behind the counter of a fast-food joint, Runza, where he’s picking up 45 servings of the eponymous Nebraskan meat and bread dish to bring back to a party at a local sports startup. “Have you heard of Hudl?” he asks, explaining in unbroken paragraphs how the power of the internet is changing high school and college sports. The woman laughs, an is this guy for real? kind of nervous giggle. But he’s dead serious.

It’s the off-the-cuff version of a stump speech I’d seen him give a few hours earlier, to a crowd of about a hundred at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. ("We need to be good stewards of technology.") I’d watched him tell the crowd about Geek Day, a digital march on Washington that he had set into motion the day before, and tout his site's success in fighting the anti-piracy bills SOPA and PIPA — including the $94 million in lobbying, largely from the entertainment industry, that had pushed them to the brink of passing. He also tells a story about a trucker he met in Colorado who didn’t even know he was an “Internet Freedom” supporter until Alexis explained what that meant, and then — from the stage — he calls Nebraska Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, a Republican who supported SOPA, to ask him why (he gets voicemail). He refers to the President of the United States, without hesitation, as POTUS.

Ohanian speaking at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

The whole time, though, he’s subtly code-switching to speak to one of the invisible constituencies he knows is present: Redditors. These, after all, are his people, his true believers. So he references bacon. He uses the word “epic.” He acknowledges memes, like Advice Animals.

When he leaves the stage, he shakes hands and poses for pictures; had a baby been there, he might’ve kissed it. Then he’s off to the next stop, a high school football game, in a tour bus that had at one time been leased by the McCain campaign and converted into the “Straight Talk Express.” Now, it’s been painted over — half red, half blue — and along with Ohanian and a few other Reddit staffers, is also carrying a small press corps (BuzzFeed included), a documentary crew, representatives from farming startup AgLocal, and a staffer at the newly formed Internet Association lobbying group. It is trailed, loudly, by an impressive car-buggy designed by open source automotive startup Local Motors.

If you didn’t know any better, you might think that Alexis Ohanian — the insistently goofy, imposingly tall, never-off 29-year-old cofounder of what is arguably the largest cohesive community on the internet — is running for office. And in fact, he kind of is — but for a position that doesn’t yet exist.

Alexis Ohanian wants to be the President of the Internet. And he’s pretty sure he knows what he needs to do to get there.

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Swing state papers emphasized the aggressive tone, but declined to come to a consensus on a clear winner in the vice presidential debate.

Colorado

Source: webmedia.newseum.org

Colorado

Source: webmedia.newseum.org

Colorado

Source: webmedia.newseum.org

Florida

Source: webmedia.newseum.org

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“The Laughing Philosopher.”

The Laughing Joe meme goes all the way back to 1904.

In a poem by Palmer Cox in the June 15, 1904 edition of the Sydney Mail, "Laughing Joe" is a "great philosopher / Lived years and years ago; / And such a merry soul was he / They called him Laughing Joe."

This is the new version of Laughing Joe, inspired by Vice President Joe Biden's laugh-filled debate last night:

Via: @jacobgershman

The searches of the vice presidential debate.

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The White House press secretary said the Vice President didn't contradict the State Department last night because he was not speaking about the Administration as a whole.

Source: youtube.com

A longer version of the briefing.

Source: youtube.com

Well, the man did say that he loves humor !

The press isn't really sure why it's here. Something to do with the atmosphere.

Image by Hillary Reinsberg/Buzzfeed

DANVILLE, Ky. — On a large indoor college basketball court, several hundred reporters sit row by row, staring at Apple laptops, sometimes typing furiously but mostly hitting refresh on their Twitter feeds. They've all traveled to this Kentucky town for the site of the the 2012 Vice Presidential Debate is being held. The debate itself is a 90-minute affair that takes place elsewhere, somewhere, on Centre College's campus. But it may as well be taking place 90 miles away.

There is basically nothing to do in the college gymnasium before the debate starts at 9 p.m., but almost everyone is there anyway. Zoned-out eyes glaze over Twitter. I see a few people with Excel sheets open. I wonder about them. There's some passable free food — chicken in a strange cream sauce, not fried, what the hell, I thought we were in Kentucky. Also, the longest and skinniest potatoes I've ever seen. Not bad. There's also beer — the whole little area is loudly sponsored by Budweiser. It's somewhere between the high school awards banquet and the college library.

"I come because they tell me to," says Allison Kingery, a staff reporter for Tokyo Chumchi-Shimbun, when I ask what she's doing here. She's already covered the Denver debate last week for the Japanese paper, and as of now she's not sure if she'll go to the next two before the election. "I'll go if they tell me to."

"If nothing else, it's good to get out of D.C.," Sam Youngman, a campaign correspondent for Reuters, tells me, when I ask him to rationalize this media circus of sorts. "Nothing good happens there."

"You can sense an atmosphere," Wen Xian, a reporter for China's People's Daily, says. He doesn't elaborate on what kind of atmosphere exactly. I also meet a guy filming video for Swedish TV. People from all over the world are here to cover the general scene, but only a handful of pool reporters will be allowed in the debate hall itself themselves for a marginally different perspective, 20 seconds ahead of the televised tape delay.

A sea of khakis and blue button down shirts mingles, shakes hands, and talks about what they've all just tweeted.

Entirely unsure of what I'm supposed to do at this point — it's only 7 p.m. —  I accept a local friend of a friend's offer to show me around the college campus. On my way out, I overhear a discussion of whether a particular D.C. reporter is "a bro" or not. He's not, definitely not, it is decided. Outside, it looks like a small town music festival. A terrible band is playing ("kind of a crappy version of Jethro Tull," my guide announces) in front of a screen where thousands of students and families will watch the debate later. Elizabeth Bressler, who graduated from Centre College in May, and now lives in nearby Lexington, Kentucky, is back with friends to watch her alma mater play debate host. "It's an uplifting feeling," she says. The mood is just that. No protesters are to be found.

Image by Hillary Reinsberg/Buzzfeed

I part ways with my guide, who offers two liters of Bourbon (it is Kentucky, after all) as a parting gift. One's called "Blue State" and the other "Red State," chosen especially as a debate gimmick. He says they taste exactly the same. There is some political joke to be made here, but it doesn't come together quickly enough.

On the way back, I walk past MSNBC's outdoor setup, where Chris Matthews is asking onlookers which candidate they support. "I'm a mother, and Romney is everything I don't want to teach my children!" one woman shouts. Watching from the side are Pam and Paul Ledden, diehard 62-year-old Democrats who've traveled an hour and a half from Hebron, Kentucky, a heavily Republican area where they say putting an Obama sign in your yard is almost unthinkable. "It can be hard to talk about politics with friends from Church. Even with family," Mrs. Ledden says. They're pleased to see a good number of Democrats out and about around here.

On the way back in to the press center, a dog sniffs my bag (for bombs, or something, I suppose) and slobbers all over it. Remember, there are two liters of hard liquor in my purse, which the security guards have absolutely no concerns about. Danville was a dry town without any bars until 2010, so I suppose carrying booze in your pocketbook isn't anything too rare around these parts.

Back in the press center, everyone is still doing basically nothing. Reporters passing our table eye the Bourbon, looking impressed. "Gonna have to borrow some of that!" multiple people say. No one actually does. There's a nostalgic reverence for the old newspaperman with the bottle of whiskey in his desk, but with the pace of things these days, you can't exactly afford to be wasted.

As the debate starts, quiet takes over and pressure sets in. It reminds me of waiting to take the SATs. Halfway through the debate, you hear the reporter behind you has almost exactly the same angle for a story, and you get competitive. You start typing faster — you want to be smart, but you also want to be first. You make strange decisions, like opting to drink an entire can of Diet Mountain Dew. It's going to be a late night. Bottles of Five Hour Energy, a drink I always thought was something you would sort of shamefully chug down in private — are everywhere, proudly on display.

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Peter Berg penned a letter to the presidential candidate after he “co-opted a phrase from the show for his campaign.”

Image by Danny Moloshok / Reuters

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Peter is calling "the use of the use of 'Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can't Lose' an act of stealing." The phrase was made popular by the critically-acclaimed series and was often seen above the entrance to the locker room.

Via: grantland.com

The show's phrase, which currently appears on Romney's Facebook page (see below), has been used in several campaign appearances and speeches. In Iowa, he told Americans:

"We have clear eyes — we know what we believe. Full hearts — we love this country and we can't lose. This is a time for Americans to make a choice. We're going to take back this country."

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