Biggest difference between Joe Biden and Paul Ryan? Charisma.
They’re each hitting the campaign trails harder now that both national conventions are over. But their approaches are starkly different.
Ryan’s had to explain what he actually meant by his totally-ran-a-marathon-under-two-hours claim; it’s been so long since he ran one that he wasn’t sure what a normal time was anymore.
“I hurt my back when I was about 23 or 24, and I had to quit running. I herniated a disk in my back,” Ryan said. “So I’ve just lost perspective on what normal times are. I ran an ordinary race, and I thought the answer I gave was an ordinary time. Obviously it wasn’t.”
Because a good amount of Ryan’s speech at the Republican National Convention was just, like, definitely lies, he’s had to go on the defense on as many talk shows that would take him.
To sum up his experience on CBS’s “Face the Nation”: Norah O’Donnell “would ask Ryan a question about a past vote that contradicted what he says now; Ryan would tell her she was wrong, and then launch an attack on President Obama,” according to the Chicago Tribune.
Ryan continues to avoid giving any actual details that a Romney/Ryan tax plan would contain.
On ABC’s “This Week” with George Stephanopoulos, Stephanopoulos asked how the Republican ticket would keep its tax plan revenue neutral without getting rid of middle-class tax deductions, a topic Bill Clinton mentioned in his speech during the Democratic National Convention; when Ryan quibbled on an answer, saying something about how most of the studies on their tax plan have been discredited, Stephanopoulos asked if he could then give specifics on how the plan would work.
“We want to have this debate in the public,” Ryan said. He also said that he and Romney would like to draft a plan first and put it before Congress.
Biden, on the other hand, is just being Biden and loving it.
“The last time I was here … I didn’t get arrested, but I almost did,” said Biden to a crowded community center in Ohio.
When he was on the University of Delaware football team in 1963, he was invited into one of the women’s dormitories on campus.
“I thought I was walking into the waiting room. I got brought into the hallway. And I got escorted out very quickly by an Athens policeman. True story, unfortunately,” Biden said.
His genial stops around the country are dotted with personal anecdotes that are not only hilarious and engaging but also true.
That’s more than we can say for Ryan’s personal stories or political facts.
Fundamentally, it seems like Romney and Ryan are disconnected from what real people actually want: funny and honest stories about almost getting arrested.
Not when they bring you a lie sandwich served with a side of lies but forget the truth platter you ordered at the window.
