Understudies Give Viewers A First-Rate Performance

By GERALD F. SEIB

If Americans wanted to know what a real debate sounds like, they got one Thursday night, courtesy of the two men who are supposed to be taking second billing in the presidential race.
Vice President Joe Biden and Rep. Paul Ryan provided millions of Americans the kind of slugfest the presidential contenders themselves didn't provide in their first debate. It was potent and lively, and nobody could walk away wondering how the parties differ.

Clips from the Vice Presidential Debate

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  GOP Chairman Reince Priebus joins WSJ to discuss the debate performance between Vice President Joe Biden and Congressman Paul Ryan. Priebus said Biden interrupted Ryan "82 times."
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  Senator Kelly Ayotte joins WSJ's Alan Murray to analyze the Vice Presidential Debate between Joe Biden and Paul Ryan, noting the emphasis on defense, foreign policy, and the economy. (Photo: AP)
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  The Vice Presidential debate addresses the U.S. government's response to attacks in Libya and the conduct of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan.

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  Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D. - Ohio) joins WSJ's Deputy Managing Editor Allan Murray to analyze the debate performance and what impact it will have in the critical battleground state of Ohio in the election. Photo: Associated Press.
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  Vice President Joe Biden and Congressman Paul Ryan debate the changes to medicare laws and the effects it will have on the middle class, presenting two different plans for America.
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  The Vice Presidential debate moves to the topic of the national debt. Joe Biden addresses the "47%" remarks from Mitt Romney. Paul Ryan refers to unemployment rate in Scranton, Pa. (Photo: AP)

Joe Biden and Paul Ryan quarrel on the topic of the U.S. economy, both accusing the other's administration of their borrowing habits. (Photo: AP)

Martha Raddatz, moderator of the Vice Presidential Debate, opens the evening by asking Joe Biden about the recent terrorist attack in Benghazi on the anniversary of 9/11, inquiring if it was "a massive intelligence failure." (Photo: AP)

The Vice Presidential debate addresses the U.S. government's response to attacks in Libya and the conduct of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan.

It took Mr. Biden a while to get wound up; he was stern but reserved for the first half-hour while the debate ranged across the area of his maximum expertise, which is national security.
But once the debate got to the differences between the two parties on spending, entitlements and taxes, the sparks flew. The two men couldn't agree any more than their parties have over the past four years.
The vice president portrayed Republicans as opposed to the crown jewels of the Democratic Party, Social Security and Medicare. "We will be no part of a voucher program [for Medicare] or the privatization of Social Security," he declared. The Republicans' plans for what their tax cuts will do for the economy are "not mathematically possible."
He found ways to repeatedly drive home the fact that he has been around a lot longer than his 42-year-old Republican opponent. He invoked his dealings with Ronald Reagan, and with the late House Speaker Tip O'Neill. He charged that Republicans put two wars on a credit card.
Through it all, Mr. Ryan stood his ground and gave back without flinching, giving as good as he got. He marshaled facts and figures and the details he has mastered as the Republicans' budget wunderkind.
And he subtly raised the question that was on the minds of everybody watching: Was Mr. Biden being so tough because he was trying to make up ground his boss, President Barack Obama, lost in his own lackluster debate performance against Mitt Romney at their own debate last week?

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Associated Press

Paul Ryan, the House Budget Committee chairman, in February holds up a copy of Obama's fiscal 2013 federal budget during a committee hearing.

"I know you're under a lot of duress to make up for lost ground," Mr. Ryan said at one point, implying that Mr. Biden was overcompensating.
And that, in fact, will be the question that will linger in the aftermath of this debate. Did Mr. Biden even the tables in the debate sweepstakes, or did he overcompensate? Did he fight back or push too far? Were his wry smiles as Mr. Ryan spoke the sign of a wise elder tolerating a smart but ill-informed younger brother, or a sign of smugness?
Ultimately, it's likely that partisans of both political parties came away pleased. It's also likely that independents, who tire of the fighting in Washington, were less so.
Conservatives will be pleased because the debate showed they got in Mr. Ryan what they hoped for when Mr. Romney made him his surprise choice as a running mate: Somebody who would make a detailed and unapologetic defense of conservative principles on taxes and spending.
He defended both tax cuts and changes in Medicare and Social Security, and did it in a way Mr. Romney can't: by referring back to his family's middle-class roots.
"My mom and I had my grandmother move in with us who was facing Alzheimer's," he said. "Medicare was there for her, just like it's there for my mom right now who's a Florida senior. After my dad died, my mom and I got Social Security survivors benefits. Helped me pay for college."
And he used his relative youth as an argument for change: Those who change Medicare for younger adults are those who are saving the program, not those who would leave it as is: "Reform it for my generation," he said.
But Mr. Biden pleased liberals by having none of it. He responded with the kind of incredulity that those on the left wanted President Obama to bring to the discussion last week. He positioned his party as the creator of Medicare and Social Security, and Republicans as the party that, decades later, still hasn't entirely bought into them.
"Look, these guys haven't been big on Medicare from the beginning," he said. "Their party's not been big on Medicare from the beginning. And they've always been about Social Security as little as you can do. Look, folks, use your common sense. Who do you trust on this?"
Nowhere was the ideological gap more clear than in the closing statements. For Mr. Biden, the economic debate is just about leveling the nation's economic playing field for the middle class, and helping those "looking for an even shot"—people like his own mother and father, and his hometown of Scranton, Pa.
For Mr. Ryan, the economic debate is about whether to put a businessman in the White House and whether to stick with "a stagnant economy that promotes more government dependency, or a dynamic, growing economy that promotes opportunity and jobs."
They framed choices worthy of debate—and the stuff of this election.