 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. 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]." 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. She asked specific questions: Instead of asking the candidates to simply describe their differences, Raddatz asked them to talk about specific scenarios. 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?
– 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.