US Politics Feature: The Biggest Story --- and Danger --- of the Vice Presidential Debate

Full video of the debate between Vice President Joe Biden and Congressman Paul Ryan

See also EA Video Analysis: How to Become An Expert on the US Presidential Election (Part 2)

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I was asked by The Hill, a prominent website on US politics, to offer an analysis of Thursday's Vice Presidential debate between Democrat Joe Biden and Republican Paul Ryan. The Hill chose the headline, "Biden and Ryan Debate to a Draw, Style Still Trumps Substance" --- that's part of the story, but I think there's more....

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Interest here in Britain in the U.S. presidential campaign is almost as intense as the interest in the UK general election. Inevitably, we are caught up in the horse race of who will prevail on November 6, but equally prominent is the question of what will be different under an Obama or Romney Administration for the next four years, both for Americans and for those outside the U.S.

The immediate verdict on last night's vice presidential debate between Joe Biden and Paul Ryan was that this was --- to borrow a term from football (or soccer, if you prefer) --- a "score draw". Neither candidate clearly won, but each notched up enough goals to satisfy his supporters. Ryan, despite some signs of nerves and some tangled responses on foreign policy, showed the competence and ability under pressure to dismiss worries about his relative lack of experience. Biden's spirited, sometimes aggressive performance was more than enough damage control after President Obama's weak display last week.

Beside cherry-picking preferred polls, committed Democrats and Republicans will spin narratives of victory to take us to next Tuesday's second presidential encounter. Democrats will emphasize Ryan's muddled counter to the plan to withdraw from Afghanistan in 2014, and will play up the "threat" of his comments on Medicare and Social Security. Republicans will point to the lack of concrete programs put forward by Biden, especially on the economy, as he preferred to challenge Ryan over the GOP plans instead of pushing his own.

All well and good for the base, but it does not really give us any clarity on the key electoral outcome: did either man grab some of the vital votes from America's "independent" center, those who are undecided or swinging back and forth between the two camps? This was not resolved last night, especially with the next two Obama-Romney debates certain to be more influential in determining which campaign can persuade voters to commit.

And so to another outcome which may just as important for us in Britain: for all the verbal combat, the encounter illuminated that the differences between an Obama Administration and a Romney alternative are not as great as advertised.

That was particularly evident on foreign policy, where the concern for many is that a Romney presidency will lead to another misguided overseas adventure. I doubt that concern was eased last night, but at the same time, the debate was notable for how Ryan and Biden effectively converged on a "get tough" posture.

Like Mitt Romney in his heralded speech in Virginia on Monday, Ryan skipped over most of the world. There was nothing on China or Russia, let alone the vanished continents of South America and Africa, and --- compare this to past campaigns --- nothing on Europe and NATO. The international economy, arguably the most important issue right now, did not make even a cameo appearance. Instead, this was a conversation about who could be the harder man over the Middle East and Iran.

That is why Ryan immediately went for the symbol of the attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya, with the supposed administration failure in intelligence and misinformation over a "terrorist" attack. And it is why Biden responded --- with a line which I think shows the limits of the GOP attack --- "we will find and bring to justice the men who did this", before segueing into the claim, "We killed bin Laden; Governor Romney said he wouldn't move heaven and earth to get him." The interpretation was that either an Obama or Romney Administration will pursue that get-tough shift in U.S. foreign policy, pulling back from the on-the-ground commitment in Afghanistan to pursue attacks from the air and through advisors and covert operatives, working with local forces, against bad guys from Yemen to Pakistan to Libya to Somalia.

A similar "tough guy" dance was played out over Iran, identified by moderator Martha Raddatz as the "biggest security issue". Ryan criticized the supposed weakness of the Obama Administration towards the "mullahs". Biden asserted, "These are the most crippling sanctions in history" and then put Ryan into a corner: "You’re going to go to war? Is that what you want to do?" The reality, as the vice president knew, is that the Romney campaign has no further policy, beyond the current economic and covert warfare against the Iranian nuclear program, unless it openly supports an Israeli airstrike.

That is where the debate reached its most dangerous point.

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