I think independents on the fence were turned off by Sara Palin...
That does not qualify for a win. I wish Biden had not spent so much time laughing at Ryan, although Ryan's positions were laughable and self serving. Of course everyone's positions are, but the GOP strategy is to lie your ass off hoping people will believe you.
Biden won because Ryan as part of the Romney team kept putting forth unsubstantiated claims and inventing their own reality. The unraveling of our foreign policy? The stimulus that he disdains, but asked to be sent to Wisconsin? His assertion that we should be doing something differently regarding Iran, but he could not articulate exactly what? I wanted to puke when he asserted that Romney was going to be bipartisan, lol. Have you seen the Congress in the last 11 years? First of all you'd need some Republicans who are willing to compromise. I've been disgusted by their championing of Medicare, a social program they hate. Most alarming was his non-committal to get out of Afghanistan. I believe Biden hit a home run on this topic. Americans are sick of never ending bankrupting wars.
This moderator was much better than the first.