by A clear victory for the man with the harder job
If viewers of Tuesday night’s vice presidential debate were expecting fireworks, they were sorely disappointed.
Unlike the debate clashes earlier in this campaign, there were no car crash moments, indecent leaks or vicious name-calling.
In fact, both JD Vance and Tim Walz approached the debate with considerable restraint, referring to each other politely and graciously when they found a point of agreement.
“I didn’t know your 17-year-old kid saw a shooting,” Mr. Vance said, turning to his opponent during an exchange about gun crime. “I’m sorry about that. Christ have mercy.”
“I appreciate that,” Mr. Walz replied. Later, he told Mr Vance: “I enjoyed this debate.”
The only moment of heat was during a debate about immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, when the moderators muted both men’s microphones.
When the same topic came up in last month’s presidential debate, Trump sparked days of headlines with his claim that immigrants were “eating cats and dogs.”
This time, there was an arcane disagreement about the specific legal status of Haitian immigrants, and the forms they use to obtain Temporary Protected Status.
As the candidates struggled, host Margaret Brennan interjected: “Gentlemen, the audience can’t hear you because your pictures have been cut.”
Mr. Vance, who has made a name for himself with outlandish announcements about “cat women without children” and his awkward manner on the campaign trail, managed to come across as warm and human. It was not, in the words of Mr Walz at an earlier rally, “weird”.
His responses to policy questions were detailed, and he spoke repeatedly about children and families in a way designed to appeal to the female voters who are driving Ms. Harris’s poll lead.
It was Mr. Walz, the man chosen by Miss Harris for his Midwestern charm, who appeared relentlessly in front of the cameras.
Stuttering over his words, getting agitated and failing to pick up some of the most obvious lines of attack to use against Mr. Vance, he looked out of his depth on the stage.
At one point, he mistakenly said he was “friends with school shooters”, apparently referring to their parents.
Perhaps the worst moment of his night came when he was challenged on his claim to have been in China at the time of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.
Recognizing that he can be a “skull”, he admitted to being “unspoken” and traveled to Hong Kong months later. “I will get caught up in the rhetoric,” he said.
His pre-scripted lines of attack on “Project 2025” and the demand that Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance impose a nationwide pregnancy program were not used when his opponent gave a more moderate response to abortion.
“We have to do a better job of regaining people’s trust,” Mr. Vance replied. “Donald Trump and I are committed to pursuing pro-family policies.”
There is clearly a reason for the friendliness of the exchange on the debate stage.
In truth, the two candidates were discussing each other’s leaders. As Mr Vance said at the start of the event: “A lot of Americans don’t know who either of us are”.
On several issues, including border control, climate change, and the economy, there were interesting points of difference between the two men.
But the harshest criticism was reserved for Trump and Ms. Harris, who were not in the room.
“An almost 80-year-old Donald Trump talking about crowd sizes is not what we need right now,” Mr. Walz said, in response to a question about the crisis in the Middle East.
Mr Vance hit back: “When did Iran and Hamas and their proxies attack Israel? It was during the Kamala Harris administration.
Tuesday’s debate is unlikely to have a major impact on polls ahead of next month’s election.
In a presidential race, the two candidates for the top job are the only two that really matter, who won’t face each other again before polling day.
In a debate where each man had the prize to impress the audience on behalf of his boss, Mr. Vance had a much more difficult job. However, he was the clear winner.
This second performance could make all the difference
Why was JD Vance, a hardcore MAGA convert with apparently limited electoral ability, chosen as Vice President over Marco Rubio or Tim Scott? Tonight showed us why. Applying his famous debating skills at Yale, the senator from Ohio launched a series of scathing, forensic attacks on the Biden administration, and questioned the judgment of the Vice President’s choice for Vice President.
Vance’s clear advantages were made clear in the first few minutes of the debate, with a clear response to the rising tensions in the Middle East following Iran’s massive rocket attack on Israel, he presented a powerful rhetorical defense of a vital ally. as he reminded the voters eloquently. no new wars have been started under Donald Trump’s Presidency. It’s hard to believe that this was the same man who struggles so much to engage with voters face-to-face, and there was no sign of his sometimes erratic vocal tics and stilted delivery. This was pure Ivy-Legue polish.
There would be no repeat of the bait and switch strategy of Kamala Harris that worked so well to draw out her Republican rival in the presidential debate. In fact, Walz struggled to keep up with the young senator, ignoring his direct motivations in favor of railing against Donald Trump – the man he clearly preferred to take on.
Walz’s failure to hold Vance accountable for his unpopular views on controversial issues such as abortion left CBS moderators to fill in the blanks. Well prepared, Vance was able to fight back without falling into the trap of appearing petulant. He asked a CBS moderator for optional fact-checking, before launching his own version against his opponent.
Immigration was always going to be a powerful invoice for MAGA loyalists, but JD Vance’s strong connection to the fentanyl crisis at the border will resonate especially well with swing state voters. Thumbing his nose at the CBS moderator’s loaded terminology, Vance argued that “the real family separation policy in this country is Kamala’s open border.” Walz’s “dehumanization” repeater felt like a finger-wagging Clinton-era morality play. From his panicked expression, he knew that too.
And what about Hong Kong? Walz’s face went into a Bidenesque confused frown. Didn’t he once claim to have been in Hong Kong during the brutal Tiananmen Square crackdown, despite living in Nebraska? Walz calmly tried to avoid the question, before admitting he was “misspeaking”.
Looking like a distracted student asked by the teacher to answer a complicated math question, Walz’s performance barely improved in the second half of the debate. In one especially brutal episode, Vance systematically took away the relevant policy victories of the Trump administration such as lower inflation and higher net wages. Vance sympathized with the “tough job” of the “whackamole” that Walz would have to play to avoid crediting the former president. Gulping, his eyes began to widen.
If presidential debates don’t matter, Vice Presidential debates don’t matter so much and hardly need a second thought. Usually. But this is no ordinary election cycle. Biden’s bizarre debate performance revealed Biden’s mental infirmity, offering a brutally quick defense of a sitting president and queen making his representative lowly.
Since then the Harris campaign has tried to feed itself solely on vitality and high energy, a strategy that has failed to move the all-important independent voters in an election. Make no mistake, Walz’s folksy gee-shucks routine was a sincere effort to get those voters on board. But like his boss, Walz has proven that his leader is not a strong media story. In an election that could have been more exciting, this performance could have made all the difference. The real wrong VP pick revealed itself Tuesday night — and it wasn’t the guy from Ohio.
