Biden helps advance the Preference Cascade against Obama

  It's been a few days since the vice presidential debate; the dust is settling but I have to say I'm still honked off about it, particularly as the Leftist media has celebrated the Leftist moderator and accused Ryan of having no specific details, as if Joe Biden's grin with a body behind it had specifics.
  The dust is settling, yes, but the fight to sway public opinion is on.
  Even Leftists like pollster John Zogby are admitting that momentum is on Romney's side, which explains the panic on the part of the Leftist media/Obama shills. 
  Vote switchers in California, according to one account, broke for Ryan as opposed to The Joker Biden.
  Rather than admit Biden was an excruciating embarrassment, the Obama wing of the Democrat party is claiming Biden was "passionate" rather than crazy, overreactive or a buffoon. Of course, the team at Current loved Biden's wacky display.
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  Personally I'm furious that even some conservatives are criticizing Paul Ryan's debate performance, claiming that he appeared weak and ineffectual.
  Politico, who recently hired the "newsman" who speculated that Romney would be happy if Black people died, claims that Ryan was greatly overshadowed by the commanding performance, however, unpleasant, of Joe Biden:

.... It is clear that Biden’s substantive high points — and there were several places where he took clear command of the debate on issues ranging from entitlements to taxes — will be partly shadowed by his nonstop succession of incredulous smiles, sneers, taunts and guffaws that were apparently intended to show self-confidence and fighting spirit but struck many viewers as undignified and rude. 

Paul Ryan, for his part, gave Republicans the minimum they needed. He turned in a passable performance with no big errors and with very occasional — and very faint — flashes of the energetic young domestic policy activist that first won him the national spotlight.

But Ryan didn’t do much more than that. His earnest-but-bland performance rarely if ever dominated the evening, and it is unlikely that he left many Republicans fantasizing about the day when it is Ryan himself running for president and taking the fight to Democrats. If he didn’t do any damage to Romney, it is possible he did himself some slight damage to his own long-term reputation.

  So the younger, vigorous, hardly bland Paul Ryan who showed respect not only for his elder but for the office of the Vice President of the United States by being courteous and not interrupting the chompin' and grinnin' going on by the second highest officer of the U.S. gets nailed because he isn't rude.
  In a 90 minute debate, "Biden spoke for 38:25 and Ryan 37:27-."
  Of those 38 minutes, Ryan was interrupted 119 times--85 by Biden and 34 by Raddutz.
  So let's get this straight.
  How much meaningful impact does a debater make on an audience when you're interrupted every thirty seconds by the other debater or the "moderator" and there are virtually no civilized or diplomatic restraints on the other persons participating?
  Which is basically cheating, ruled not only acceptable, but policy.
  Washington Examiner analyzed the questions and concluded this:

A vice presidential debate analysis from a conservative media watchdog group found that debate moderator and ABC correspondent Martha Raddatz asked 19 pro-Obama questions Thursday night, but just 12 skewed Republican, a 40 percent to 25 percent margin.

  Radditz bore down on Ryan nine times with followups, while she lazily asked Biden one question. 
  The substance of Radditz's accusatory questions can be found here at Breitbart, where it quickly becomes obvious that Ryan was nailed on the difficulties of the Obama/Biden terrible foreign policy decisions while Biden smirked nearby.
  But things aren't really going so well for Team Obama. 
  Biden's performance was an absolute nightmare that will remain fixed in people's minds for years to come, regardless how Leftists try to spin it. Eventually it will be ridiculed on comedy shows, although probably not until after Obama loses.
  The current VP is a joke, and it's not just for what he said but how he looked. 
  The Daily Mail has an amusing article about Biden's dentures, which a dentist speculates are worth $20,000, which might explain why he was flashing them so frequently to the populace, so much so that I have friends who were envious of how white and big his teeth are.

While his smile was dismissed as patronising Ryan, his teeth could have been part of a shock and awe tactic on his opponent.  

Catrise Austin, a 'dentist to the stars' based in New York City, told MailOnline she thought Biden had been fitted with either a full set of porcelain veneers or a porcelain bridge, at an estimated cost of around $20,000.

  Cripes Suzette thinks she knows another secret about Biden. She "blames the Botox" for Biden's bizarre appearance:

I’m thinking his forehead was done about three weeks ago to allow movement last night but his cheeks were filled more recently and it wasn’t a good job. Whoever did it probably was careful to use the same amount on both sides but forgot to take into consideration the lopsided mouth movements that are his signature. That’s why he’s got the Little Eye – when he pulls his mouth to the right, the filler rides up and pushed up his lower eyelid.

  graphic from Cripes Suzette

    In even more disturbing news, you may have heard that Lindsey Lohan has come out of the closet to support Romney, a news items not really welcomed by conservatives.

  But TownHall sees the news as a harbinger, identifying the chronically drug addled Lohan as a "low information voter" who is emblematic of a larger swing of low information voters away from Obama.

  IOW, if even Lindsey Lohan in her perpetually dim state can figure out that Obama's bad for the country and is, well, no longer cool, then what about the hoards of other Jersey Housewives' fans out there waiting to switch their votes because it is now cool?

  Interesting, but the following theory is even more interesting.

  A preference cascade, explained carefully in several places, is when the public in general begins to subtly switch, consciously or not, from one public display of preference to another as a sort of evolutionary event.

  Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit originally theorized about the preference cascade at Tech Central Station in 2003 when patriotic displays began appearing a year or so after September 11 of 2011. 

  Back in May this year Human Events' John Hayward wrote this:

A preference cascade can flow in positive directions as well.  Those who believe they are alone in holding a positive opinion about something are delighted to discover that its fan base is much larger than they believed, and approval quickly snowballs.  Anyone who has watched a “cult” phenomenon go “mainstream” has witnessed this. 

That’s what began happening over the past couple of weeks: a large number of people discovered it’s okay to strongly disapprove of Barack Obama.  His popularity has always been buttressed by the conviction – very aggressively pushed by his supporters – that disapproval of his personal or official conduct is immoral.  You’re presumptively “racist” if you disagree with him, or at least a greedy tool of the Evil Rich, or a “Tea Party extremist.

  Heh. Pretty funny that Lindsey Lohan might be an indicator of yet another Tea Party victory.
  Regardless, Biden did untold damage to the Obama brand the other night. He's a joke, a water cooler topic, a cartoon character who can't stop yammering like a drunk uncle. 
  I mean, seriously.
  His friends say his behavior shows he's "human," something apparently people doubted.
  Women were disgusted with Biden's performance.
  People are now comfortable joking he's off his meds.
  Or has a personality disorder.
  Or emulating the ghost of Al Gore.
  Yeah, that's the ticket.
  Emulating Al Gore, Joe Biden.
  The intellect of the Democrat Party.