Reporter: Expectations were high for the first and only vice-presidential debate, in which vice president Biden and Congressman Paul Ryan both came out swinging.
Bryan: You know what the unemployment rate in Scranton is today?
BIDEN: I sure do.
RYAN: It's 10 percent.
BIDEN: Yeah.
RYAN: You know what it was the day you guys came in — 8.5 percent.
BIDEN: Yeah.
RYAN: That's how it's going all around America.
Look...
BIDEN: You don't read the statistics. That's not how it's going. It's going down.
Reporter: Analysts said Mr. Ryan who is not as well-known as Mr. Biden had to reassure voters he can do the job. Stephen Hess of the Brookings Institution:
Stephen Hess: What he had to do was show that he was capable, uh, of being vice president of the United States. And I think he clearly did that.
Reporter: President Barack Obama had delivered a lacklastre performance in his first debate agaist his republican challenger Mit Romtney last week, Hess says Biden came in with a game plan.
Stephen Hess: And, it was a, for Joe Biden. To put some fire back in the belly of of the Partisan uh democrates. And clearly that was a strategy and I think he did that, uh, he did that well.
Analysts say voters are only looking for a couple of basic requirements in a vice president. Quinnipiac University pollster Peter Brown says that most voters have two questions in mind:
"If something happens to the president, do, am I comfortable with this guy sitting in the oval office. That's number one. And number two, what is it tell me about the presidential candidates, mr. romney, mr. obama in terms of their judgement by picking these guys as as their successor in in case of catastrophy.
Reporter: Both men fought hard with sharp exchanges on foreigh policy, tax cuts and abortion. Over the past month, democrates have seized on secretly recorded comments mr. romney made at a republican fund-raiser, saying “47 percent of Americans pay no taxes", many democrates were dismayed that President Obama not bring up the comments during his debate (but) Mr. Biden did.
Biden: But it shouldn’t be surprising for a guy who says 47 percent of the American people are unwilling to take responsibility for their own lives. My friend recently in a speech in Washington said “30 percent of the American people are takers.”These people are my mom and dad — the people I grew up with, my neighbors.
Reporter: Later in the debate Mr. Ryan responded with the follow-up by Mr. Biden: With respect to that quote, I think the vice president very well knows, that sometimes the words don’t come out of your mouth the right way.
Biden: "But I always say what I mean."
Analysts say President Obama is likely to be much more aggessive during the second presidential debate Tuesday and then Mr. Romney is also likely to come prepared for a fight.
Cindy Saine VOA news.
