October 11, 2012 at 3:17 PM

Editor's note: The Fourth Branch will host members of both the Penn State College Republicans and Penn State College Democrats as bloggers to vet their opposing viewpoints for Presidential debate season. Drew McGehrin serves as president of the Penn State College Democrats.

Thursday’s night Vice Presidential debate will certainly show the clear distinction between the two presidential tickets. One ticket, with a record of great domestic and foreign policy success will illuminate and pick apart the gaps and blind spots that run rampant throughout the opposition’s proposed policies. The truth of the matter is, Vice President Joe Biden has a record of these successes—Paul Ryan does not. Where Biden’s record bolsters his assertions, the Romney/Ryan ticket fills in its blanks with rhetoric inundated with ambiguities.

The route to success for the Democratic ticket on Thursday will undoubtedly lie in attacking these ambiguities. If Joe Biden challenges Paul Ryan to any degree on these points, his platform will begin to fall down around him. As evidenced in Ryan’s (apparently) friendly appearance on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace, even on a conservative-friendly network, Ryan cannot seem to fully explain his plans, and specifically in this instance, his budget. Despite being the creator and so-called master of budgetary policy, for some unknown reason, Ryan cannot seem to tactfully clarify his budget in a way that make sense or even deems it feasible.

 These attacks alone, however, will not win Biden the debate. He must stay offensive and simultaneously exhibit the successes that he and President Obama have accomplished in the past four years, while pushing forward with proposed policies to continue this success. This was one weakness in the last presidential debate.

Despite doing nothing wrong, the President did seem to play on the safer side of the debate. Mitt Romney had a lot to say, often times speaking over both the President and the moderator, but through all this rambling rhetoric, there existed no substance at all. One liners and vast generalizations are what comprised the entirety of Romney’s monologue. If the past sets any precedent, Ryan will do much of the same.

Biden, in this next debate, has the ability to slash through these pointless claims and show the emptiness and inaccuracy of the Romney/Ryan statements. He can once and for all give the American people the facts, ones which the Romney/Ryan ticket conveniently likes to omit from their rhetoric.

To expand upon what my peer Craig Anderson stated, a vote for President Obama and Vice President Biden will be a vote for a record of success and four more years of American prosperity. While a vote for Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan will certainly be a question for the future success of our nation, it is not entirely a blind vote. We know where Romney and Ryan want to take us—back to the failed policies that placed us, among much other devastation, on the brink of an economic depression. Do we really want to return to this dark state of the country? I’m not sure about you, but I prefer prosperity.