IF there is debates this fall, Biden NEEDS to go after Trump like he did Ryan in 2012.

[Drunken Irishman]

He has been woefully reserved this debate season but he can't be that way with Trump. Biden needs to just keep pushing him over and over like Paula Reid just did for CBS News. He does that and Trump will falter.

One area I wish Hillary would have done better in was pushing back at Trump's bullshit. She tried deflecting it in a presidential way but she needed to really interrupt him and outright question his statements.

If you go watch the Ryan-Biden debate, Biden was all over Ryan whenever he said something that wasn't true. He had no problem interrupting him and it was effective as all hell. It may have been the most effective vice presidential debate in history and it completely changed the dynamics of the race, as I think Obama realized he needed that fire too.

But in these primary debates, Biden often was too much a gentleman. He'd rarely interrupt and when given a chance to push back, if he started running over his time, he'd stop mid-sentence and apologize. He can't do that against Trump.

I am hopeful, after the Biden-Bernie two-person debate last month, that Biden's reservations were tied to a larger debate stage, and one-on-one he feels more comfortable butting in and calling a lie a lie.

Because that's what he's going to have to do IF Trump debates him.

I think Biden can do it. He's done it before. He needs to again, tho. Trump is the most ineffective when he gets push back and I think it's because he's not used to getting push back from anyone - whether his administration or in his private/business life.

[TwilightZone]

1. "He has been woefully reserved"

"Woefully" means mournful or deplorably bad. I don't think either apply. Biden, for the most part, did what he needed to do and got the points across.

Clearly, the strategy worked. Biden isn't going to win a war of yelling and finger-waving, and I'm not sure there's really any evidence that that's what will be required to project clear opposition and an alternative to Trump.

[Drunken Irishman]

2. I disagree.

I think the strategy hurt him and it nearly cost him the nomination.

Biden is going to have to corner Trump on his lies. He cannot be reserved in these debates.

Hillary beat Trump, according to Americans, in every one of those debates in 2016. But she mostly stayed above the attacks and let Trump go off on all his suggestive language. I think she thought he'd hang himself with his rhetoric. But he never really did. There was only one point where she clearly got under his skin and turned him into a blubbering idiot and it was when she attacked him by calling him Putin's puppet. He responded nonsensically. But other than that, she mostly stated policy-driven and let Trump do his thing.

I believe that hurt her and elevated Trump to get off attacks that, while maybe didn't look good in the context of the debate, had lasting impact.

She won the battle but lost the war.

Biden needs to force Trump into being a stammering idiot and shoot back at every lie and attack or he risks the exact same thing.

[TwilightZone]

3. Nah.

So, she won the debates, according to pretty much everyone, and you insist that she should have taken a different approach anyway?

Sure, change a winning pattern. Sounds like a great idea.

Biden wasn't woefully bad. He did what he needed to do, especially in the last few debates. That's partly why he demolished Sanders between SC and Super Tuesday, and it wasn't a race after that.

[Drunken Irishman]

4. Yes I insist she should have taken a different approach.

My basis for that belief? She's not president right now.

Hillary won the debates on substance but Trump's lies were not challenged.

And it wasn't a winning strategy. There was no knock out for Hillary in those debates and it allowed Trump to claw his way back into the race in the final weeks.

The last debate was held on Oct. 19th. At the time, Trump was behind by 6.4 points. A week later, he was down by only four-points on average. That was a day before the Comey Letter dropped.

So, even before Clinton faced her biggest 'scandal' of the 2016 race, Trump's numbers improved coming out of the debate.

Despite polls saying she won all three of those debates.

Compare that to Obama-Romney four years prior.

On the day of the final presidential debate, Oct. 22nd, Romney led Obama by roughly a percentage point. A week later, they were tied - and a day and a week later, Obama took the lead and never relinquished it.

Clinton's win was hollow because she allowed Trump to lie and didn't press him enough. So, while it was a winning strategy according to the debate polls, it didn't matter in the actual results. Much like 2000, when Al Gore was declared the winner in two of the three debates and yet the narrative set in that Bush actually gained the most out of the debate.

Not exactly a winning strategy if you lose the election.

Also, I never said Biden was woefully bad. I said woefully reserved. He wasn't bad but the strategy of him being reserved was .