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Biden and Ryan's Showdown: Hollywood Reacts

8:34 PM PDT 10/11/2012 by Seth Abramovitch
Vice Presidential Debate Joe Biden Laughing - H 2012
Getty Images

The candidates offered as different a debate from the presidential meet as one could imagine.

If the presidential debate offered a strangely lopsided and shapeless match-up between President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, Thursday's vice presidential showdown offered voters something to sink their teeth into.

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From the beginning, it was clear that Vice President Joe Biden was fired up, given as he was to angry confrontational rhetoric punctuated by frequent outbursts of incredulous laughter. To that, his rival, Paul Ryan, played the role of cool challenger, rarely breaking eye-contact or losing his train of thought as he adhered to a well-worn list of GOP campaign talking points.

There were almost too many quotable moments to seize upon, though Twitter seemed instantly drawn to the term "malarkey" -- a quaint term used by Biden in place of a popular synonym for cattle fertilizer. And then there was "Bean," a nickname Ryan said he gave his daughter, inspired by the legume-like shape she took on in a pre-birth sonogram. The reference came during a question about the candidates' stances on abortion.

And while the evening offered no breakout star on the level of Big Bird, moderator Martha Reddatz, the senior foreign affairs correspondent for ABC News, stood out as the anti-Jim Lehrer -- regularly interrupting the candidates to steer the conversation back towards her questions, which tended towards issues of foreign policy.

Celebrity reaction came fast and furious -- perhaps even moreso than for Obama and Romney's debate.

Some early Twitter reactions:

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