Those of us of a certain age have heard the explanation often of the 1960 debate: for those who listened on the radio, Nixon won, for those watching on TV, Kennedy won. In a visual medium, style matters, maybe (sigh) more than substance. Each of us can zero in on favorite lines in the debate like calling a fight; A just landed a crushing left jab, B sliced with an upper cut...... but in the post debate reflection it may be images that prevail, and in this internet age where second hand recounts are many people's only source of "news", the stories repeated of those images grow, perhaps, disproportionately. On the substance I don't think either guy "won", they each had small triumphs and blunders. On style Ryan may have had the better "tactics". He came across as somewhat deferential to Bidens age and position (annoyed me during the debate because I thought he let Biden push him around a bit too much). But upon reflection, and somewhat influenced by post debate commentary and interviews, it looks like 'Ol Joe stepped on his..........ah........toe just a bit. It seems women in particular, well open minded women, not the koolaid drinkers, took great offense to his visible arrogance and snideness. It seemed natural to me, but then I see the Pres and his minions as elitists who think they should run my life..............of course they're arrogant and condescending! I don't know if that's enough to swing election results any, we'll see.

There were two things yesterday, that if capitalized on correctly, SHOULD have a huge impact. One was from earlier in the day, the other from early in the debate. Both regard the murder of our people in Benghazi on 9/11. I saw a clip of the deputy campaign director for Obama in an NBC (I think) interview say something along the lines, "....that the ONLY (emphasis hers) reason this Benghazi thing has become a story of interest is because of Romney and Ryan!" Even the sympathetic "news" gal had a look on her face like "are you serious???" Then Ol' Joe laid off the "blame some obscure online video" excuse on "the intelligence community told us that".

It will be interesting to see if there are any "leaks" in the next few days from "unnamed sources" within the intelligence community that put truth or challenge to that "throw someone else under the bus" comment. Of course, that will only be useful/effective if it's able to get past the lapdog media filter. Likewise the "It's Romney's fault" comment. For those tired of "It's Bush's fault", there's a new meme, yahoo! But how typical of this President that for the nine million, three hundred and fifty second time............................................bad outcomes are someone else's fault. Maybe I need to resurect that old joke that the sign on his desk reads......."The buck gets passed here.".