debate site? i think when you read body language, i think you sort of get a better understanding of what happened tonight. democratic spinners, democrats many this general feel enthused, almost relieved. biden brought fight. he brought passion. everything that seemed to be missing from president obama. i think when you watch the body language of republicans and just sort of the spin i m hearing from republicans is, hey, did you look at joe biden laughing? did you look at joe biden doing this? when you re talking about the other opponent in a stylistic matter, you re sort of quietly admitting it s a poker tell. well, don t quite have a good hand to sell subsitively. we know joe biden on points controlled the debate. he put paul ryan on the defensive a lot more. i think you see republicans are trying to push the style thing. i think it shows you they know, look, biden did what he had to do to stop the panic on the
debate site. what s the reception like at the debate site? i think when you read body language, i think you sort of get a better understanding of what happened tonight. democratic spinners, democrats many this general feel enthused, almost relieved. biden brought fight. he brought passion. everything that seemed to be missing from president obama. i think when you watch the body language of republicans and just sort of the spin i m hearing from republicans is, hey, did you look at joe biden laughing? did you look at joe biden doing this? when you re talking about the other opponent in a stylistic matter, you re sort of quietly admitting it s a poker tell. well, don t quite have a good hand to sell substantively. we know joe biden on points controlled the debate. he put paul ryan on the defensive a lot more. i think you see republicans are trying to push the style thing. i think it shows you they know, look, biden did what he had to
that he believes and mitt romney believes that government should be making the most private personal medical decisions for women. i think this is i m glad it s finally out in the open, that they actually do believe that women shouldn t be able to make their own decisions about having children, but in fact this is something we should leave to legislators and government. this is something that is this is not supported by the american people. i think american women needed to hear that tonight. there was also a discussion in that section of the debate about obamacare, as they call it, and its effect on contraception services within health care plans and as that relates to some religious employers. paul ryan talking about that in terms of a deprivation of religious liberty. paul ryan didn t say this, of course, but he and mitt romney have said on day one if they were elected they would get rid of insurance coverage for birth control from employers. all across the board. so actually,
belong in the debate. but there was much more energy to it, obviously. there s much more energy in this room right now. i think both sides are going to have a real fight in this room tonight about who did better in this debate. one of the things that is not clear to me is how easy this debate was to follow. i think those of us who are well versed in everything that these candidates are saying, it s very clear. when paul ryan starts referring to the cbo, i know what he means. i m not sure what the swing voter, the low-information voter hears when they hear references to the cbo. and similarly, with some of the points that joe biden made. i understood it completely, but sometimes there s a disjointed quality to it and i m not quite sure exactly what ended up getting delivered to voters tonight. let s go now to steve schmidt, who s a senior adviser to the mccain/palin campaign in 2008. watching this as a republican, steve, i will just say in the room here us all watching together we wer
overwhelmingly, almost to the exclusion of anything else, is the economy. that s what even though all the time wasn t about the economy in the debate tonight, that s what s going to have legs. that and cultural issues such as abortion. it seemed like the congressman was on defense on the issue of taxing the rich. the best he could say listening to him closely was, it won t be enough if you tax the rich to balance the budget. everybody knows that s a ludicrous assessment. the need to tax the rich has a lot to do with basic fairness in our society as well as fiscal balance. well, i think that was among i think joe biden was very strong on all of the talking points and issues that you and i and everybody else said the president didn t hit last week. joe biden hit every one of those marks. in talking to russ, one of the top media advisers for media campaign right after the debatd, he said to me, yeah, joe biden made all the points.