Who Won the Presidential Debates: It Was a Draw, But Millennials Were the Biggest Losers

Impact

 

While there is great joy among the respective political camps over the performance of Vice President Joe Biden and challenger Congressman Paul Ryan respectively, America’s future was the biggest loser in this debate.

None can question Joe Biden was alternately confrontational and defensive bringing into sharp focus the administration’s accomplishments as well as its future objectives, a performance which fired up his base.

Conversely, Congressman Ryan’s base has lavished praise upon his debate, particularly for standing toe-to-toe on foreign policy and sparing effectively concerning entitlement reform.

Those opinions acknowledged the fiscal issues which plague our recovery and our future were swept behind the growing curtain separating Main Street’s concerns from this political campaign. Far too often when either candidate was pressed on the difficult issues facing our country, they repeated nothing more than piecrust promises, easily made and easily broken.

As an example, the vice president noted that the administration's actions had extended the fiscal solvency of Medicare from 2016, when they took office, to now 2023.

Owing to the fact, millennials will not be scheduled to begin collecting Medicare until 2055, your vote obviously doesn’t matter to either candidate or they would have addressed how to fix Medicare beyond 2023 so you might actually someday collect benefits under the program.

But don’t feel bad, even AARP, an organization which claims to have senior’s interest at heart as their reason to exist have largely given ignored this fact. Reality remains that unless significant changes are made to Medicare, all the benefits that have been enhanced under the administration’s program will be eliminated by 2023 as well as many others.

Millennials and America as a whole not only had their entitlement benefit futures punted down the road concerning reform, neither candidate offered up any additional specifics on a path toward recovery.

Biden forcefully proclaimed the administration's contention, “just get out of the way” … and they will add jobs through increased spending on education, innovation and infrastructure. No mention was made as to how to pay for this increased spending.

Yet the fiscally conservative Budget Chairman Paul Ryan didn’t even swing at this political softball attempting to put the ball back in play. He instead took Biden’s pitch reciting back the 5-point plan of his running mate leaving America stranded on base still hoping for a game-changing hit which would net more jobs coming home.

For an hour and half, talking points dominated the debate responses. It didn’t have to be like that. Debate moderator Martha Raddatz, a veteran foreign correspondent from ABC News, actually opened the debate with a question that depending on your perspective was as poignant as any asked the entire evening.

Raddatz asked Biden to explain the administration’s explanation of the activities that occurred during the Libyan embassy’s attack that led to the death of Ambassador Stevens as well as three staff members. Following the vice president's thoughtful response, Ryan offered the Romney campaign’s talking point on the issue.

Alternately, the Twitter universe offered up the following, “if our Intelligence is that bad, it is time for a change.”

That simple tweet represents a thought all America should be considering today across a long list of issues. Have we truly become a nation who will believe anything no matter how implausible?

Why hasn’t this campaign been dominated by specific discourse on; job creation, deficit reduction, entitlement reform, mortgage crisis or student loan debt? Are you truly satisfied with the details from whichever candidate you are supporting reflective of your key concerns.

Who won the VP debate? At this point, I don’t care. All I know is once again America lost.