{"id":15529,"date":"2012-08-17T08:27:47","date_gmt":"2012-08-17T12:27:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=15529"},"modified":"2012-08-17T08:27:47","modified_gmt":"2012-08-17T12:27:47","slug":"biden-gets-debating-partner-but-will-it-help","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/15529\/biden-gets-debating-partner-but-will-it-help\/","title":{"rendered":"Biden Gets Debating Partner, But Will It Help?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.politico.com\/blogs\/burns-haberman\/2012\/08\/van-hollen-chosen-as-ryan-standin-for-biden-debate-132367.html?hp=f2 \" target=\"_blank\">Politico<\/a> reports that Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) will play the part of Paul Ryan as Vice President Joe Biden prepares for his one and only debate with the Wisconsin Republican.<\/p>\n<p>While Van Hollen \u2013 the politically savvy ranking Democrat on Ryan&#8217;s House Budget Committee \u2013 will no doubt do a fine job, I\u2019m more than a bit surprised to learn that Biden even prepares for such things like a debate.\u00a0 The good ole\u2019 Joe we\u2019ve come to know \u2013 \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.detroitnews.com\/article\/20120817\/OPINION03\/208170331\/1008\/opinion01\/Biden-s-chains-drags-down-discourse\" target=\"_blank\">They\u2019ll put ya\u2019ll back in chains!<\/a>\u201d \u2013 just doesn\u2019t strike me as the kind of person who thinks much before he speaks.<\/p>\n<p>My guess is that won\u2019t change even with all the time and money spent on coaches, policy briefs, and poll-tested responses.\u00a0 Joe is who he is: an emotive liberal who shoots from the lip.\u00a0 His advantage, of course, is that everyone has incredibly low expectations for him; especially now that he\u2019s going up against Paul Ryan, the universally acclaimed number one intellectual public official in the Republican Party.<\/p>\n<p>If Ryan hammers Biden or makes him look out of touch, well, we expect that.\u00a0 But if Biden gets Ryan flustered or slides in a good line (even if it\u2019s a non sequitur), then the media will declare him the upset winner.<\/p>\n<p>My guess is that Ryan plays it straight and banks on Biden making an unforced error before confirming the widespread hunch that Biden is out of his depth.\u00a0 Biden\u2019s history makes that a safe bet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Politico reports that Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) will play the part of Paul Ryan as Vice President Joe Biden prepares for his one and only debate with the Wisconsin Republican. While Van Hollen \u2013 the politically savvy ranking Democrat on Ryan&#8217;s House Budget Committee \u2013 will no doubt do a fine job, I\u2019m more [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2033,3765,1972,101,802,2729],"class_list":["post-15529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-2033","tag-chris-van-hollen","tag-debate","tag-joe-biden","tag-paul-ryan","tag-vice-president"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15529"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15529\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15536,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15529\/revisions\/15536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}