A different comparison

With all the things written about the presidential race, I thought it would be worthwhile to compare the vice presidential candidates for once. I realize that essentially no one will vote on this basis, but it is worth looking at Joe Biden and Paul Ryan to see who they are and what they tell us about Obama and Romney.

Obama chose Biden in 2008 in order to fill a perceived gap in his background, namely, the lack of foreign policy experience. No one thought at the time that Biden was selected because he could govern if something happened to Obama. Biden, after all, is famous for consistently being wrong about policy questions. Biden was the principal advocate for giving up in Iraq in 2007 and engineering the division of that country into three separate nations, one Kurdish, one Sunni and one Shia. President Bush chose the opposite course, the Iraq surge, and the war was won with a democratic Iraq emerging as a result of that choice. Biden also strongly advocating for removal of American troops from Afghanistan in 2009 with only an anti-terror strike force operating mostly from off shore left behind. Obama rejected that view and instead sent about another 100,000 troops to Afghanistan. Of course, Obama also announced that the move was just temporary so it has not been successful. Simply put, Biden was a choice made to help Obama get elected.

Ryan, on the other hand, has been chosen to show the seriousness of the economic difficulties of the nation. Ryan has the intellectual ability to face these difficulties and come up with solutions. He clearly could be president if called upon to step into the White House. He not only has a different philosophy than Obama, but also Ryan knows what it means to govern (something that puts him way ahead of the Democrats.)

Ryan is extremely intelligent. Biden had a reputation as the dumbest man in the senate in the days before he became vice president.

Ryan is a reasonably good speaker. His oratory may not be flowery, but his content is clear and logical. Biden is the bufoon of the speech makers. His non-stop gaffes are legendary. We could fill ten pages with just his verbal mistakes of the last four years.

Ryan and Biden are both decent men who clearly care about their families. Neither is afflicted with the demons of envy or anger the way that Obama is. It is hard to imagine Ryan or Biden declaring some social group like the wealthy to be the enemies of America (like Obama has done.) It is also hard to imagine Biden or Ryan telling blatant lies or engaging in character assasination just to win an election (like Obama seems to do every time.)

Ryan is an original thinker. He has proposed all sorts of new ideas for saving entitlements and for reorganizing the government to avoid waste. Biden is hardly original. Indeed, for Biden it is a stretch to call him a "thinker" of any kind.

Biden is a left over from an older generation, the generation of Clinton and Bush. Ryan is part of a wave of freshness that needs to transform Washington.

Here is a simle test. If you went to hear either Ryan or Biden speak, would you take seriously what each one had to say? Suppose the speeches were about new policy proposals; would you take either one seriously. My guess is that if we polled that question, Ryan would win by better than a 2 to 1 margin.