I watched the VP debate for the second time tonight since my wife hadn’t seen it during the day and I came away even more than before with the strong impression that Paul Ryan heavily took it out. He came across as someone with cool and judgement, someone with the gravitas and seriousness to be the president if he had to. He had thought about the issues and if he were called upon to decide on some matter, looks perfectly able to sort through the options he might be given with a genuine capability to properly weigh matters up.

Biden was the reverse. He struck me as crude and shallow, lacking in a genuine ability to see an issue through to the end. Nor did he give me that comfortable feeling that he would be able to take a difficult decision in which there might be a host of considerations to weigh up. And his laugh track was so irritating that you really do wonder whether he is psychologically unbalanced. It was obviously the strategy for him to smile and smile and be a villain yet, but if that was supposed to be a winning pose it worked for me not at all.

Before the debate I had written that:

Biden is wily and been around the traps for quite a while. He is practised in the art of politics which makes him a formidable opponent and not someone to let one’s guard down against for a moment. Though he lied and misrepresented from one end of the debate to the other, in my remembrance of the time he was more than a match for Sarah Palin and Paul Ryan is new at the game. Ryan has a number of potential problems in front of him – he may be too wonkish, he may sound too much like he intends to slash and burn and he is coming in against an expectation that will work against him if at the end of the night Biden has been able to hold his own. For all that, Ryan understands the issues within an inch of his life and Biden does not.

In the end, that’s still how it looked to me. Biden said whatever he thought might sound best on the night and truth be damned. He therefore came away with a superficial plausibility but struck me as someone of no substance. Ryan in contrast played it straight, obviously fortified by his deep knowledge of the issues and his commitment to the positions he took.

The test for me is this. If I were considering which of the two I would want to sit down with Vladimir Putin in some negotiation where some vital interest was at stake, there is no doubt that I would prefer it was Ryan at the table. On this, if there’s doubt for you, there’s none for me at all.

Some further thoughts: In my view the difference in the debate and which affected Paul Ryan is the difference between talking to an audience that knows the facts and the general public that does not. Ryan’s experience comes from discussion in the House where it is difficult to get away with untruths and misstatements for very long. The unemployment rate went down below eight percent for the first time in 43 months – hardly a worthy test of economic competence – and even then the number had the look of a fiddle as has been noted. Anyway, as the Washington Post further noted, the data also showed “the biggest increase in so-called underemployed Americans since February 2009, during the depths of the Great Recession.” Loved the “so-called” since it is a stat in the same league as the unemployment rate.

Meanwhile Iran really is moving closer to the bomb and whatever nonsense there may be about Iran being “more isolated” than ever, it will make hardly an ounce of difference since even North Korea has the bomb and no one is more isolated than they are. And if you’re not scared about that what does scare you? Romney often talks about a suitcase bomb in New York against which there would be no defence.

And the bit about tax cuts for the rich, it is necessary to understand the American system which means that to raise this rate will raise taxes on a multitude of small firms.

Ryan’s problem – a general problem for Republicans – is that they assume a higher level of knowledge and a better comprehension of the issues. The Democrats, like all the parties of the left, stick to the P.T. Barnum Principle, there’s a sucker born every minute. With population growth being what it is, we’re down to one every ten seconds and the numbers are growing.