TOUCHDOWN BIDEN!
Vice President Biden comes through -- energizing Obama supporters with a feisty debate against Paul Ryan. From the start, Biden challenged the Romney/Ryan record and viewers for the most part saw a sharp contrast on the issues. On style, Biden frequently smiled, laughed or scoffed at his opponent, and, like your Irish uncle, he used the word "malarkey" a few times.
Everyone's a winner? Just as liberals feel re-energized by last night, Republicans can walk away feeling good - if not great - about Ryan's performance. While Ryan was out of his depth on some foreign policy issues, he kept his cool - for the most part. But this morning, Republicans are still talking about Biden's smiling, and not Ryan on the issues, and that may be a problem.
Politico's Roger Simon calls it for Biden.
The one area where there was little substantive difference was on foreign policy: Despite Romney and Ryan's tendency to criticize the Obama administration, Ryan couldn't point to a lot that the Republicans would do differently.
Nate Silver looks at the debate's effect on the polls -- and calls Biden's performance a "hold" ahead of Tuesday's presidential debate, which could really move the needle again.
