Given America’s polarization and the daily tone and tenor of this presidential election, people would be forgiven for thinking they’ve stumbled upon another era in American politics instead of the 2024 vice presidential debate.
In some ways, this debate felt like a throwback to the VP debates America was accustomed to in the pre-Trump era — essentially a week-long hiatus between the first and second presidential debates. The flashback vibe I got was similar to the 2000 and 2004 Dick Cheney debates (vs. Joe Lieberman and John Edwards) or the 2008 and 2012 Joe Biden debates (vs. Sarah Palin and Paul Ryan).
The Tuesday night regulars were very respectable. JD Vance and Tim Walz each went out of their way to shield their direct foe from particularly harsh criticism at the top of the ticket. If you’re super online and super partisan, you’re probably shocked at how civil and respectful this debate is. (And some of you may be disappointed that it didn’t turn into a food fight.)
An important note about this clash: This debate covered more content and was more serious in tone than the debate we saw at the top of the tickets. The only major issues left untouched were the broader threat China poses to the Pacific region in general and the issue of Taiwan specifically.
But kudos to the CBS News team for a solid issue matrix; in most cases, it covered many topics that voters wanted to talk about. In CBS News’ defense, neither China nor Ukraine is seen as a top issue by voters, even though both may be the most pressing challenges for the next US president.
But there is something else that bothers me about this argument. It’s not a stretch to conclude that former President Donald Trump himself makes debates of the type Vance and Waltz engaged in Tuesday night nearly impossible. And that’s too bad. We could really use a presidential debate like the one we witnessed on Tuesday night.
But Trump has never engaged in a debate that didn’t turn into something more pugilistic and even immature and juvenile at times. (Should I mention hand sizes?) I wonder if the tone and tenor of this debate will end up hurting Trump because it reminds voters of what politics can be when Trump isn’t on stage.
But in the short term, the real question about this debate is whether it will have any impact on the current campaign.
History suggests that this debate will have little or no impact. Information from each campaign on how important this debate will be will come by the weekend: How many points of contention will both campaigns try to push over the next 24 hours? My guess is nothing or close to nothing, but we’ll find out together!
Going into this debate, I assumed that both vice presidential candidates would focus more on the top of the ticket. And for the most part, the two played for writing. In nearly every response, Walz went after Trump and regularly found ways to praise Vance in a way that would appear anti-Trump. Vance would similarly try to overshadow Walz by praising the governor’s empathy and concern for the problem in contrast to Vice President Kamala Harris.
But what surprised me a bit was that Waltz was more aggressive about Trump than he was about Vance Harris.
Ultimately, the VP candidate’s No. 1 job in these debates is to make a case against the top of the ticket. So it’s quite interesting to me that Vance’s chosen strategy is designed to improve his personal ratings.
Maybe if he improves his personal ratings, that might help the whole ticket, but I doubt it. Dan Quayle was extremely unpopular in 1988, especially after his poor debate performance, but his unpopularity had no effect on the top of the ticket. In fact, Lloyd Bentsen, the Democratic nominee that year, may have ended the campaign as personally the most popular of the four candidates on the ticket. And yet, it did nothing to help the top of the Democratic ticket.
Vance may have made significant progress in rebuilding his image for a 2028 presidential bid. But I’m not sure how much that will help Trump. I’m still a little surprised that Vance tried to remind the audience that Harris is still part of the Biden administration.
He actually ignored Biden by name, instead referring only to Harris on several occasions. It’s an interesting decision, given that Trump’s campaign team wants to reattach Biden’s unpopular brand to Harris. I’m not sure Vance was as aggressive on this front as one would expect if his role was simply “attack dog”.
As for the waltz, her performance was the definition of uneven. Some of his nervousness, especially at the beginning, has passed. Obviously, he was telling the truth when he told Harris during the VP vetting process that the debate was not a strong fit for him. But Walz was strong against Trump, especially on Jan. 6 and around the time he filed the abortion lawsuit. He was generally less adept at defending Biden-Harris’ actions.
His worst moment is pretty obvious at this point: his inability to admit he was exaggerating while in and around Tiananmen Square in China was painful to watch. He finally got there, but he looked like a kid looking at his report cards and trying to justify why he cheated on an exam.
It was a moment that could have been avoided if the Harris-Walz campaign had done just one thing: let Walz sit down and conduct a series of accountability interviews like market shows. But the Harris-Walz operation is so confident that tough media interviews can distract attention from Trump that it is sticking to this form of “defence prevention.”
Prevention now does more than prevent losses in football games. But they also guarantee that the race will be close to the end. Sitting down for more interviews may seem risky, but if the Harris campaign wants to see if it can win more than one percent in a battleground state, perhaps these interviews could serve to convince voters that this ticket is over. to work.
The real unknown outcome of this controversy is whether it will be the last of the presidency.
Trump continues to express that he thinks it is too late for another discussion. But after tonight, as a viewer, I would like to see more follow-up on what I hear from potential VPs. They both have more questions that I’d like them to answer on stage together. I think there are enough undecided voters, or semi-decided voters, who want another crack at evaluating the mettle of the two candidates.
I think Trump and his team are convinced that Harris needs more discussion than Trump. And the Trump team isn’t denying how badly the first match went for Trump. While I’m not sure another debate would benefit Trump, he still needs a big stage to make his closing argument — and the only stage big enough is a debate.
If Tuesday night was the last word, the good news is that both VP wannabes left quite a positive impression on voters, perhaps more positive than any of our so-called experts would have predicted.