VP Debate

Quick thoughts

Pence was calm, collected, and unflappable.  Unlike Trump, he was controlled and measured, rarely offering an interruption.  However, he did finish his point.  It was almost comical how he would drone away as Susan Page kept telling him that his time was up.  He was never rude but definitely firm and resolute.  Wow, this guy is great.  He got a little repetitive but that is how you make it stick with the audience.  What I took away from his comments was that Biden will raise my taxes, cozy up to China, coddle the Iranians, rejoin the Paris Accords, and end fossil fuels.  Sounds grim.

By comparison to the granite like calm of Pence, Harris seemed nervous.  Of course, compared to Trump, she would have appeared to be the calm one.  Oddly enough, this debate also reminded me of the VP debate of Biden vs. Ryan but in a completely different way.  Biden had come across as the confident old hand while Ryan was the young recruit.  In this case, Pence was the veteran while Harris was the recruit.  This same thing happened with Benson vs. Quayle in 1988.  Harris was mostly on attack.  From her, I took away that Trump has ruined the economy, failed in addressing Covid-19 such that 210,000 Americans are dead, that Trump tax cuts were for the wealthy, that our world standing is in the toilet, that we lost the trade war with China, and Trump won't condemn white supremacy.

Susan Page was better than Chris Wallace but that may just be that she had more cooperative debaters.  Her questions were slanted left, as one expects.  Of note, she is writing a biography of Nancy Pelosi but had previously written one of Barbara Bush, so the complaints on that point are weak.  It was odd that she asked what Pence would do if Trump didn't accept electoral defeat and for balance she asked Harris what she would do if Trump didn't accept defeat.  Hmm.  Pence noted that Hillary advised that Biden should not concede under any circumstances and that the Democrats still haven't accepted defeat from 2016.  Maybe a fair question for Harris would have been, "Will Joe Biden accept the election results?"  You know, like Chris Wallace asked Trump, but not Hillary, in 2016.

Pence won.  His demeanor and iron control were palpable.  His attacks were more difficult to rebut - especially the Green New Deal line of attack - and he had better replies to Harris's attacks.  His question about stacking the court and Harris's refusal to answer was telling.  After she was done with her non-answer, Pence tossed in the aside that she didn't answer.  Nice.  His reply to the 8th grader was reassuring and uniting while Harris offered a youth are the future boilerplate.  Really, Pence's answer seemed like it was pre-planned it was so good.  Nonetheless, I don't think this moved the needle.  People don't vote for VP.  Then again, as Susan Page brought up, one of these two will be VP to the oldest president in American history.  They have higher odds than most VPs of getting elevated.  If it did move the needle, it was toward Trump-Pence.