Ryan v. Biden

I still haven't had a chance to watch the first presidential debate. I was flying into San Jose as it was happening last week, but I did catch tonight's. I thought it was really interesting. A few quick thoughts:

• Biden is really insufferable, isn't he? You knew that he had to come out swinging, especially after Obama's performance last week, but I have to wonder if people that are still undecided could ever find that kind of person appealing. I guess in one respect Ryan may have come off as passive, but it seems like one of the strength's of the Obama ticket is that they are supposedly so likeable, but the way he behaved, I would think, would appear to be very, very off-putting.
• Ryan got him good with the quip about Biden's own frequent gaffes. The townhall really loved that, but Biden got him on the letter that Ryan had written to Biden. Even if Ryan had a valid point, Biden didn't allow him to properly respond, which I guess is good enough.
• The Libya stuff is pretty damning for the administration.
• The personal stories woven by Ryan in are sometimes pretty compelling, Sometimes it may be overkill. 
• Ryan had some awesome, awesome lines on economic policy, but is his strength. Unfortunately, the debate did not center on this topic, only really coming up toward the end.
• The Catholic-abortion question was well-answered, and I can see the argument that pro-choice'rs have about guaranteeing others the right to choose, but I wish Ryan could've painted a clearer picture about how extreme the liberal views are on abortion. Partial-birth, even live-birth abortions are very appalling. Could anyone ever get behind that?
• To the last point also, the Ryan point about Catholic charities having to sue to not be forced to practice against their beliefs, Biden is so brazen. The only reason why they haven't to this date is because they forced back the decision on that point until after the start of the new year. So yes, they haven't yet, but it's only because you forced the issue to a later date. Very deceitful.

I think it went for Ryan, but I'm not partial. In the end, this will probably be a wash. It will be interesting to see how the mainstream media spins it. I checked out Huffington, and in a huge headline in bold they have written BIDEN'D, touting a survey that says he won 67%-30-something percent, but the survey is of only 300 people, and advertised by the heavily liberal HuffPost. CNN has it essentially a draw. I'd think it'd be energizing to the base, but a turn off to undecideds. We'll see.