Joe Biden vs. Paul Ryan

How Joe Biden and Paul Ryan stack up against each other as candidates.

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In their own words

BIDEN: “I know I’m sometimes criticized for saying exactly what I mean,” Biden told supporters in Virginia on Aug. 15. “It’s not going to change.”
RYAN: “Do you want the president’s path of a government-centered society, a path to debt and decline? Or do you want to get back to the American idea, the opportunity society with a strong safety net that is wired to getting people back to work, on to lives of self-sufficiency?

/ AP (left), Tanya Jones/Getty Images (right)

Background: Biden

President Obama picked Biden as his running mate in 2008 because of his foreign policy experience and his ability to connect with working-class voters. The six-term senator and former chairman of the Senate Judiciary and Foreign Relations committees is famous for his cringe-inducing gaffes, but colleagues say he is a gifted legislator who knows how to get laws passed. The vice president was put in charge of some of the administration's biggest goals, including implementing Obama's $787 billion stimulus package, supervising the U.S. mission in Iraq and helping to push health-care reform through Congress.

Steven Mantilla / AP

Background: Ryan

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney selected Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin as his running mate on Aug. 11, elevating the intellectual architect of the GOP’s approach to slashing deficits and signaling a desire to place the nation’s looming fiscal challenges at the center of the campaign’s final months. When Republicans were in the minority, he pointedly challenged his party and President George W. Bush to return to the fiscal conservatism that once characterized Republicans.

Jack Dempsey / AP

Expertise: Ryan

Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee, was first elected to Congress at the age of 28 and turned himself into a fresh-faced budget hawk. He is best known as the author of the fiscally conservative budget proposals passed by the House in 2010 and 2011. Ryan also sits on the Ways and Means Committee, which oversees tax policy, health care and Social Security; he is on its Social Security and select revenue measures subcommittees.

J. Scott Applewhite / AP

Expertise: Biden

The former chair of the Foreign Relations Committee has a deeper understanding of foreign policy than almost any other lawmaker. In June 2009, Obama tapped Biden to serve as his point man on Iraq. Biden was also one of the chief skeptics of the December 2009 30,000-troop surge in Afghanistan.

David Furst / AFP/Getty Images

On the issues: Biden

As a longtime member and twice chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Biden was active on issues such as arms control treaties with the Soviet Union and NATO expansion (he was for both); the 1991 Persian Gulf War (against) and the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq (for); and subsequent occupation and troop escalation (against). Biden made clear to Obama that he wanted to be the “last person” in the room with the president when decisions were made. To “an extraordinary degree,” he got what he wanted, a senior White House official said. On the campaign trail, too, Biden often makes a more impassioned case for the Obama record than the president has. He laid out the 2012 message in a series of five framing speeches last spring before Obama had even formally kicked off his campaign.

John Locher / AP

On the issues: Ryan

After the 2008 elections, Ryan wrote in the Wall Street Journal that Republicans needed “a substantial party shake-up.” “We need to be honest about the root causes of our current financial crisis: loose money, crony capitalism and a lack of market transparency and information.” He emphasized the importance of keeping inflation in check, curbing entitlement spending and enacting business tax reforms. Although socially and fiscally conservative, Ryan is seen as a moderate when it comes to foreign policy. And he isn’t afraid to challenge those within his party in pushing for larger private Social Security accounts or higher tax cuts.

Conrad Schmidt / AP

Ryan's take on Biden

“These are the kinds of things that you say when you're desperate in a campaign,” Ryan told conservative talk-show host Sean Hannity on his radio program Aug. 15. He was referring to Biden's remark Aug. 14 to a predominately black audience that Republicans “are gonna put y'all back in chains.” On the radio show the next day, Ryan remarked that “We've gone from hope and change to anger and division and blame and attack. I think people are going to see through this.”

David Becker / AP

Biden's take on Ryan

“What's gutsy about giving millionaires and billionaires tax breaks? What's gutsy about gutting Medicaid, Medicare, education?” asked Biden, referring to Ryan's budget proposal, during an appearance before supporters in Durham, N.C., on Aug. 13.

Bill O'Leary / The Washington Post

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