So it was Honeymooners versus family ties, Ed Norton versus Alex Keating. What we saw Thursday night in the vice-presidential debate wasn't only an argument about policy, it was a look at two different eras in American family life.

Biden of course could stand on Neptune and distract attention away from the sun. He entered the Senate in 1973, back when the old Democratic giants from the New Deal era still roamed the earth. Every sentimental tone of voice, every ebullient and condescending grin brought you back to the old kitchen tables in working class Catholic neighborhoods of places like Scranton, Chicago, San Francisco, Providence and Philadelphia.

That was a time, much more so than now, when there were still regional manners, regional accents and greater distance from the homogenizing influence of mass culture. That was a culture in which emotion was put out there on display - screaming matches between family members who could erupt in chest poking fury one second and then loyalty until death affection the next.

Biden gave America the full opera Thursday night, and I suspect there will be as many reactions as there are partisan flavors. Democrats will obviously be cheered by his aggressive impassioned and offensive performance.

It will be the crowning irony of the No Drama Obama campaign that it took a man who exudes more drama than a decade of Latin American soap operas to get Democrats out of their funk.

Biden clearly ended the psychic slide. He took it to Ryan on the inexplicability of the Republican tax plan. He had his best moments on those subjects Ryan is strongest, like budgets.

At the same time, my inbox was filled with a certain number of people who would be happy if they could spend the next few weeks punching Biden in the face, and not just Republicans. What do independents want most? They want people who will practice a more respectful brand of politics, who will behave the way most Americans try to behave in their dealings - respectfully, maybe pausing to listen for a second. To them Biden will seem like an off-putting caricature of the worst of old-style politics.

A lot of people will look at Biden's performance and see a style of politics that makes complex tradeoffs impossible. The people who think this way swing general elections.

Ryan hails from a different era, not the era of the 1950s' diner, but the era of the workout gym. By Ryan's time, the national media culture was pervasive. The tone was cool, not hot. Ryan emerges from this culture in the same way Barack Obama does.

This is a generation armed with self-awareness. In this generation you roll your eyes at anyone who is quite so flamboyantly demonstrative as the VP.

In addition, Ryan was nurtured by the conservative policy apparatus and had a tendency Thursday night to talk about policy even when he was asked about character. I would not say he defined a personality as firmly as he might have, but he did an excellent job of demonstrating policy professionalism. He was strong on Obama's economic failures, strong on the Libya debacle, and he did have a few chances to highlight the Obama campaigns crucial weakness - the relative absence of any positive agenda, the relative absence of any large plans for the next four years.

Substantively, it is the Romney-Ryan proposals that were the center of attention. Some of those proposals are unpopular (Medicare, which was woefully under-covered). Some are popular (Taxes). But most of the discussion was on Romney plans because the other side just doesn't have many.

This was a battle of generations. The age difference was the undercurrent of every exchange. The older man had the virility, but in a way that will seem antique to many.