When a Draw = Win

Full disclosure here: I am a Yankee fan and a Steeler fan. Last night my eyes were glued to two different sporting events at once, and not the Vice Presidential debate. I have listened to the first 40 minutes, so therefore I will not comment on any of the substance from last night. What I have been doing is following the reactions on the various social media outlets.

My take away from the reactions of people that I know, follow, and trust is that whichever party you are a member of is the one that won last night. Official media polls show completely differing opinions as well, some with a clear win for either of the candidates, and others showing it as a draw.

What this means is that it was a Biden loss, maybe not for the individual debate but for the election momentum as a whole. The Romney/Ryan ticket has shown more momentum following the first Presidential debate than any challenger in history. In order for Biden to have come away with an actual victory for the entire ticket, his individual debate victory needed to be as definitive as Romney’s victory in the first debate.

The fact that more and more people I follow, and yes I do have friends on both sides of the aisle as well as those that are truly independent of party, is there were many times Biden came off as rude and inconsiderate of his opponent. If this is something that is actually a widespread belief, than we actually need to stand up and personally thank the Vice President.

The American people like the underdog and, with the strong showing from Gov. Romney a week ago, there was a chance of some subconsciously pulling for the President due to his performance. On top of that no one likes to root for the team that shows disdain and rudeness to an opponent. This “bully” mentality will mask any amount of substance in the message itself and the presentation of the message is all that will be left behind.

There were two ways for Biden to lose this debate for his party. An outright loss would have been devastating, and no one is suggesting that it was that. But a draw does his administration no favors with reversing the momentum that is surging for the Republican side of the presidential ballot.

I had a bad night with both my sports teams losing, seems I should have watched the debate if I wanted to see a real winner.