It’s 10:15 and hadn’t seen this yet, so I figured I’d start. Here are my takeaways so far:
- We do seem to be getting a pretty standard Dem v. GOP debate as many predicted. I doubt it moves many votes in either direction and I’m not sure how an undecided voter using only this debate would lean after this.
- Both candidates seem to be using a lot of talking points and answering the questions they want to answer only tangentially related to the question asked.
- The moderator is not a strong personality. Both candidates have been walking all over her.
- I noticed the candidates each wore ties colored as usually associated with the opposite party.
What say you?
Please share widely!
Kaine clearly won this debate by tying Pence to Trump, pointing out how bad Trump was and pointing to a lot of positive Clinton policies. He was cordial to Pence while talking past him to attack Donald. Smart strategy that allows him to be the attack dog without being impersonable like Ryan was in 2012.
Pence just set himself up nicely as a 2020 front runner. Came out as a far more traditionally consistent Republican on defense to appeal to the neocon and Heritage pillar, he name dropped our Lord like it was nobodies business setting himself up with the evangelicals, while he will carry the Trump message on trade and immigration through the primaries. The candidate who can win the Trump voter while appealing to evangelicals and the establishment is in a strong position. He performed very well with Republican primary voters tonight. Definitely didn’t do anything to help his ticket win over swing voters.
While it is difficult, and maybe not even desirable, to say who “won” the debate I felt like Pence came on stronger most of the night, though as with the last one there were moments when I wanted to go to the videotape.
and depending on what happens in the next few years his “I supported the nominee in 2016, but I’m a regular Republican” persona should play well in the primaries.
One trend that is under-reported this cycle is “the time for a change trend” that courses through US (and other democracies) politics. 2016 should have been the Republicans’ year to recapture the White House. Whether that trend will be present in 2020 though is unclear. You could have seen people happy with a Republican White House and a Democratic Senate in January.
He set himself up nicely for Trump loyalists, as well as Never Trump conservatives and establishmentarians. It still sounds like the past to me, like a more folksy George W Bush.
The smarter play for 2020 will be for a socially moderate minority with strong credentials on fiscal and security issues. Eg: the Anti Trump.
Even with a sane and competent nominee Obama is popular and the country seems to be moving in the right direction.
Neither the moderator or Kaine presses him on the RFPA in Indiana, the single biggest mistake of Pence’s political career and something that should sink his credibility with swing voters. Nor the dissonance between Pence and Trump on Putin.
But Pence 2020 is looking strong.
Kaine tried too hard and should have presented himself as a winner. He did not. His script was okay, he made his points, but he tried too hard.
Pence lied, but so did Romney in the debate that he won.
I think Pence came off like a 2020 POTUS candidate, whereas Kaine came off as a wingman.
But I wonder:
1. How many people watched?
2. How much will any of it be covered by the news?
3. Will anyone remember in a week?
4. How many people will remember both VPOTUS candidate names in a week?
I suspect that there aren’t many undecideds or persuadeables who watched last night. I have no data to back that up, just a hunch.
This debate won’t be remembered much. Republican stalwarts will love Pence’s performance, which helps Pence in 2020 more than it helps Trump in 2016, and the Clinton campaign now has a ton of fodder to show Pence saying “he didn’t say that” right next to a video of Trump saying it (this has already started in earnest today).
In the two most memorable VP debates of recent memory (Biden v. Palin and Bentsen v. Quayle), the debates did not have a huge impact on the general race, although the Bentsen debate may have helped destroy Quayle’s future political career.
I don’t think this one will change the state of the race one bit – especially not with another Prez debate coming up so soon and a potentially major storm about to hit the US.
but nominee, I don’t know. With the crowd that ran this cycle, the more they became known, the less they were liked, Trump notwithstanding.
I would say Kaine lost, but that’s probably because my expectations for him were higher. WAY too much inside baseball stuff the average voter doesn’t know or care about.
I’ve considered VP debates less than useful ever since Lloyd Bentsen delivered a knock-out blow against Dan “Potatoe” Quayle and it didn’t end up mattering one bit. Why do we still do this?
Anyway, maybe the only good thing to come out of this (from my POV) results from whatever was going on in Pence’s head when he chose the phrase he used to counter Kaine’s bringing up Trump’s anti-everyone remarks again: “You’ve whipped out that Mexican thing again.”
This was both titillating enough to light up social media and simultaneously reminds everyone of Trump’s racist remarks. Hopefully it has a little bit of an effect.
Lighting up social media is part of their strategy.
Kaine had the policies at his finger tips, rattled them off, and repeatedly put Trump on the defensive, to boot Pence didn’t have much in the way of policy to offer other than conservative pabulum/talking points, and he completely refused to stand up and defend Trump (arguably his most important role). How do you lie repeatedly about what the top of the ticket “didn’t say” and “win” the debate? I don’t get it. My favorite Republican talking point is Obama’s “feckless” foreign policy. Pence’s foreign policy? “Strength.” Quite a policy. My second favorite Pence policy? Coal. Kaine had HRC’s back at every turn. Solid job by Sen. Kaine.
If the goal was to defend the top of the ticket, Kaine won. If the goal was self promotion, Pence won.
Never before has a VP nominee on a debate stage so thoroughly removed himself from the top of the ticket.
set up for this …
…has posted its rundown of the commentariat’s reaction, which virtually unanimously give the debate to Pence, left, right, and foreign. However, the site itself points out that Kaine wasn’t trying to win in the traditional sense anyway.