During last night's VP debate, I received the same basic message from multiple people: Why couldn't these two be running at the top of their tickets? That reaction came less from a desire to see either be president, but more from an appreciation of the return of the traditional debate, comity, and at several times, mutual graciousness.
None of that helped Tim Walz, however. And neither did CBS News and its moderators, Norah O'Donnell and Margaret Brennan -- although Lord knows they tried to do their best to rescue the Democrat.
David Muir and Linsey Davis got a deluge of criticism for interfering in the one presidential debate on ABC News with one-sided "fact-checks," clearly corrupting the process in favor of Kamala Harris. CBS News promised its moderators would not conduct any fact-checking. It took them less than 20 minutes to violate that, interjecting at least twice to contradict J.D. Vance, and then cut off his microphone when he attempted to rebut their "fact check."
Nor was that their only attempt to rescue Walz. Throughout the debate, O'Donnell and Brennan would ask Vance to clarify claims and frame context for his one-minute rebuttals, while simply allowing Walz to frame his own rebuttal times. This happened throughout the debate, and it created the exact same three-on-one dynamic that plagued the ABC debate.
Plus, the question sets were essentially copied from Muir and Davis, designed to give Walz the most breathing room. After spending a few minutes on Iran, foreign policy largely disappeared from the questions, although both candidates brought it up. We had no questions on China policy, Taiwan, military readiness, or the deficit. Instead, we got child care and "democracy," which Vance turned into a debate on censorship and caught Walz sputtering over it.
The moderators chose sides again, and provided yet even more reasons for Republicans to demand new platforms other than media outlets to run these events.
But this time, it didn't matter. Both candidates showed up prepared to debate substance and Walz did get a few licks in. The problem for Walz is that he couldn't get around Vance's strategy, launched from the very start of the debate and revisited enough to stick. In each case, bur especially on economic policy, Vance reminded everyone that Kamala Harris owns the status quo, and is the status quo. Donald Trump only really got to that argument in a firm manner in his closing argument in the previous debate, but Vance stuck to it for all 100 minutes or so of this debate.
That's not to say that Walz didn't have his moments and opportunities. Walz did well on abortion, as expected, probably because it's the one policy on which he's prepared and Democrats can expect popular support. He came across as earnest, at least, and returned Vance's graciousness in equal measure. However, Walz spent all of the debate either glaring at the cameras or at Vance with a bug-eyed look and appeared flustered several times while Vance kept a cool composure.
And when the moderators took their one whack at Walz' lies about his time in China, he offered up a word salad worthy of his running mate -- prompting the moderators to ask the question again.
Admitting that you're a "knucklehead" is not the kind of change voters want. That could have been an endearing bit of self-deprecation, but coming after two minutes of distraction and drivel, it looked more like self-recognition. In that moment, Walz revealed himself as a shady politician rather than a "stand-up guy," and it colored the rest of the debate.
Vance looked completely comfortable at the podium all night, in contrast with Walz' equally clear discomfort. He looked and sounded relaxed, cheerful, and friendly, even when rebuking CBS News moderators for interjecting into the debate. He never lost his composure, often related personally to his own life rather than to his state government, a well into which Walz dipped too often. He recalculated loaded questions on the fly to redirect to more important issues, and that was nowhere done better than on the "democracy" debate when he demanded that Walz account for Biden-Harris censorship efforts on COVID-19 debates. Walz sputtered, "I'm not Facebook," but Biden and Harris clearly thought they should be Facebook.
Even before the closing arguments, Vance had triumphed so much over Walz that Denocrats began flooding Twitter/X with laments. (We'll get to some media reactions in later posts.) Vance finished the debate by pounding into the consciousness that Kamala Harris has had three and a half years to do what she and Walz claim they will do, sticking the landing even better than Trump did thanks to the consistency with which Vance argued this point over the preceding 100 minutes.
Vance triumphed last night. Democrats hoped to lower expectations by claiming that Vance had Ivy League training in the days before this debate, but Vance didn't sound Ivy League at all. He sounded normal, while Walz' bug-eyed glare and word salads sounded downright ... weird.
Will this make any difference in the race? That's a fair question; voters don't usually make ballot choices based on the running mates. That could be different in this cycle, given that this will be the final debate and how polarized voters are on the presidential choices. If so, Vance gave voters a lot of reasons to consider him as a leader for the future -- and Walz gave them lots of reasons to worry about his readiness for national office.
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