I would have to give the slight edge to Ryan. But I honestly believe the low expectations for Biden are why people think it could be considered a tie or even that Biden won. I will say Biden did much better than Obama, but that didn't take much. A big negative for him, though, is he was very rude during the debate. It's one thing to interrupt a few times in the entire 90 minutes, but to do it just about everytime your opponent is speaking is unacceptable (some people say it was ~80 times). Then there's the seemingly uncontrollable smirking (sometimes accompanied by laughter). I'm sure they wanted him to be aggressive to compensate for Obama, but he overcompensated. Sure, being aggressive and rude toward your opponent might get your base riled up, but it's not going to help with the Independents (which Obama is already losing) and the undecided voters.
On a quick side note, Biden's answer on Iran was laughable. To paraphrase, "Sure Iran has enough material to make a nuclear bomb, but they don't have a bomb to stick the material in." Thanks Joe, I feel much safer now. That's just as bad as Obama's "look at how tiny Iran is, they can't hurt anyone."
One thing I do fault Ryan on is not explaining the tax issue as well as Romney did. He only mentioned closing tax loopholes as a way to make up for the loses in government revenue. Romney, on the other hand, explained that when you lower taxes you stimulate the economy, which in turn creates more jobs, which then creates more taxpayers and government revenue.
As for the moderator, at the beginning I started to think she was pretty fair. But, near the middle she started going after Ryan like she was a reporter interviewing him and trying to catch him on something, not a moderator. For a second there, Biden and her were both grilling Ryan at the same time. I don't know if she got a little talking to in her ear, or if she just caught herself, because she returned to her style from the beginning of the debate.
