master debaters How Moderator Martha Raddatz Won the Debate 
 
 She was assertive: "I think we've gone over this quite enough," Raddatz said, when she wanted to corral the candidates. When she felt it was time to talk about Iran, she cut the conversation off and simply said said, "Let's move to Iran," pointing out that "there's really no bigger national security [threat]." Who's going to argue with that? 
 
 She asked specific questions: Instead of asking the candidates to simply describe their differences, Raddatz asked them to talk about specific scenarios. Taking the Iran example again, she asked, "Can the two of you be absolutely clear and specific to the American people how effective would a military strike be?" When she asked about the economy, she didn't say "describe your economic policy." She said, "will you level with the American people? Can you get unemployment under 6 percent, and how long will it take?" 
 
 She had details at hand: The question about the economy provides a good illustration. She prefaced her query with a detailed overview of the current economic situation: "The percentage of unemployed just fell below 8 percent for the first time in 43 months. The Obama administration had projected that it would fall below 6 percent now after the addition of close to a trillion dollars in stimulus money." 
 
 She asked tough follow-up questions: When Ryan criticized the president's handling of the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Raddatz followed up with a question about Mitt Romney's own mishandling of the situation, politically: "Was that really appropriate right in the middle of the crisis?" When Biden said later that Ryan was talking "a bunch of stuff," Raddatz deadpanned: "What does that mean, a bunch of stuff?" ||||| The Vice Presidential Debate’s winner? Not a candidate, but the debate’s moderator, ABC’s Martha Raddatz. 
 
 Raddatz asked questions on a wide span of issues, ranging from foreign policy to abortion, and pressed the candidates to be exacting in their answers. “Be specific,” she pushed Biden when she didn’t find his answer to a question on Libya to be sufficient. 
 
 She also had a pretty easy act to follow. Last week’s presidential debate moderator, Jim Lehrer, was called “unconscious” and “a disaster.” His pushover performance even inspired a “Silent Jim Lehrer” Twitter feed. 
 
 “She did a good job. She kept it focused without interfering too much. I felt like the questions she posed were important questions - very relevant to the concern of most Americans,” Ted Strickland, Ohio’s former Democratic governor, said after the debate. 
 
 Lehrer, as Strickland put it, “allowed [last week’s] debate to become unfocused.” He also took issue with the fact that, “There was no discussion of issues that are related to women — like equal pay for equal work. There was no discussion of the choice issue.” 
 
 Even Michael Steel, a spokesman for Paul Ryan said he “thought she was clearly more assertive,” even if the resulting answers were “no more disciplined.” 
 
 The pro-Raddatz sentiment played out on Twitter — dozens of users posted tweets asking if they could vote for the moderator come November. “Raddatz for prez.” 
 
 Political reporters and commentators largely agreed: ||||| Tweet with a location 
 
 You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more ||||| Caricature is the currency of media and politics, and this election year, both the sitting vice president and the aspiring vice president have inflated their cartoonishness by Greece-like percentages. Consider Time magazine’s newly released photos of Rep. Paul Ryan in gym clothes and backward baseball cap, curling dumbbells. Consider the photo of Biden nuzzling a doo-ragged biker chick last month in Ohio. Ryan portrays himself as a wonk who exercises his mind by crunching numbers and his body by numbering crunches. Biden, pairing foreign-policy credentials with rambling folksiness, has fashioned himself into a blue-collar elder statesman who sometimes acts like your uncle after three glasses of Scotch. 
 
 So a debate between the two should be zany, right? Eddie Munster vs. Uncle Fester! Or Eddie Haskell vs. Uncle Buck! In short, great television. 
 
 And it was, at times. There was drama (nuclear annihilation!). There were antics (Irish jokes!). There was also a clear protagonist, or anti-hero, depending on your politics: Biden tap-danced his way over an introverted Ryan onstage at Centre College in Danville, Ky. The veep undermined his opponent at every turn: chuckling during Ryan’s answers, muttering “Oh, God” and “It’s incredible,” grinning widely as if listening to a nephew lie about breaking his curfew. 
 
 Biden, perhaps the last pre-Boomer on a major-party ticket, turns 70 next month. Ryan, the first bona-fide Gen-Xer on a major-party ticket, exited his terrible twos about three weeks after Biden became a senator. Biden’s Brillo-y white hairline has consolidated into a kind of Donald Trump-like mirage while Ryan’s appears to be advancing, led byhis pronounced widow’s peak. 
 
 And yet Biden, even when playing up his long political tenure, radiated much more vigor than his opponent, whom he kept calling “my friend,” although he seemed to mean “my silly, inexperienced friend.” To his credit, Ryan kept his poker face. 
 
 Raddatz held firm control of the debate without squelching dialogue or spontaneity. She pushed the men for “specific plans”; she declared, “We’re gonna move on” when answers meandered; and she silenced both debaters with the teacherly interjection of “Gentlemen.” Fairly or not, she reserved most of her skepticism for Ryan. 
 
 “No specifics, then?” she asked Ryan about his ticket’s tax plan. “Can you guarantee this math will add up?. . . How do you do that?. . . I wanna know how you do the math.” 
 
 The media narrative, bent by an absurd fixation on poll numbers, trumpeted the vice-presidential debate as Biden’s opportunity to redeem President Obama’s flat “performance” in the first debate last week, which somehow persuaded enough poll-able Americans to waffle and therefore rebooted the horse race. Expect this debate to reboot it again, and ’round and ’round we go. 
 
 The evening was defined as a test of surrogacy, of each man’s ability to bolster the top of the ticket, but it was more useful to watch the debate as a test of presidentiality (or “chief executive realness,” if you will). They are not spokesmen. They are or would be second in command. And it was easier to imagine the confident Biden starring as the president in a one-hour CBS political drama. And isn’t what these debates are really about: Whom America can imagine in that role? 
 
 But the night’s most ready-for-prime-time move came not from either candidate, but from Raddatz, who in the closing minutes of the debate asked them: “Are you ever embarrassed by the tone” of this campaign? Both candidates avoided apologizing for their campaign’s behavior and pivoted back to talking points, but the message from the moderator was clear: You boys might be running for the second-highest office, but the American people don’t like the way you’re doing it. 
 
 And scene.
– As with the Obama-Romney debate, a lot of the post-Biden-Ryan debate talk is focusing on the moderator—but this time they're saying nice things. Martha Raddatz, senior foreign affairs correspondent for ABC, "pursued each man with the vigor of a woman more accustomed to needling foreign leaders than reciting prompter text," writes Dan Zak at the Washington Post. Unlike Jim Lehrer, whose moderating was widely panned, Raddatz was assertive and asked tough follow-up questions, writes Adam Martin at New York, declaring her the real winner of the debate. Raddatz was seen as an odd choice, but her performance "should be the gold standard for future moderators," writes Josh Feldman at Mediaite. "She grilled the candidates just enough on their positions to spur them on, but struck a good balance in when she interrupted both men." A Ryan spokesman says "she was clearly more assertive," although the resulting answers were "no more disciplined," reports BuzzFeed. But not everybody was happy with Raddatz's moderating. "I miss Jim Lehrer" tweeted Karl Rove.