#2

Tonight, the Obama administration's #2 man takes on the Romney campaign's #2 man.  The contrast could hardly be greater, as outlined by Howard Fineman writing on the Huggington Post.

. . .  Biden and Ryan will offer clashing views at the heart of their respective traditions -– traditions in which they are more steeped and to which they are more deeply wedded than their ticket mates.

If the Democrats are to convince voters about the wisdom of an enduring, ameliorative and economically stimulative government, it is up to Biden to begin that profound task here tonight.

It’s up to Ryan to make the case that free-market individualism can work for all.

These are the right men to do it.

They are their parties in pure form: Biden the devotee of traditional Democratic social welfare activism by the state; Ryan a disciple of Ayn Rand’s virtue-of-selfishness, post-Word War II libertarianism.

As a side note -– not an insignificant one -– Ryan and Biden represent conflicting strands of American Catholicism, and are the first two Catholics to face each other in a national political debate.

Biden, who is pro-choice and pro-gay marriage, represents the social-welfare good-works traditions of the church. Ryan, ardently pro-life, anti-gay marriage and skeptical of government, represents the conservative, almost evangelical faith tradition.

On a generational level, this confrontation will feature the widest age disparity between national candidates in modern times: 27 years.

So let the games begin.

Ralph