The veep debate

18 Replies

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I’ve been meaning to get to this for a couple of days, so let me take a shot now.

I’ll start with this exchange about the Vance-Walz debate from the NYT’s Matter of Opinion podcast:

Michelle Cottle: And I think on behalf of exhausted Americans, people appreciated that we’ve got enough crazy at the top of the ticket that I think both of them had a very specific job. Vance needed to not look mean and cold and unhinged in order to rebrand himself from the clips and what the Democrats have been pushing his image as.

And Walz has a reputation as being a good guy, politicking on the — and I hate this term so much — “the politics of joy.” I’m sorry. That is a Christmas carol. That is not a presidential position. But that’s what he’s there with. So he needed to look civilized and genial, as well. So they both had their reasons. And I think it was a welcome break from what we are accustomed to.

Carlos Lozada: I do think that the civility thing was far more useful for Vance than for Walz, in part because I think it’s something that merely reaffirmed Walz, whereas it was something that helped rehabilitate Vance….

Yes. And of course the panelists touched upon the irony of the veep debate having gone, starting in 2016, from being a barking contest between attack dogs (while the people at the top of the tickets modeled statesmanlike behavior) to an oasis of sanity and civility in the era of Trump.

And that’s what this one was, and mostly the two men met the expectation of civility quite well — with J.D. Vance unexpectedly going a better job of it than Tim Walz. Or, to put it as I did on Twitter in real time:

I later added to that tweet, “That pose is eroding, though. Am I the only one hearing him shift tone? Less ‘Governor Walz,’ and more ‘Tim…'” But on the whole, it was refreshing.

Interestingly, the panelists agreed that Vance “won” the debate, and they noted how that differed from the after-debate polls, which were more of an even split. They congratulated themselves on their professional perspective, which enabled them to appreciate his “performance.” Which surprised me slightly, especially coming from Ross Douthat. Usually, he’s more of a substance-over-form guy. But then, he’s also the official “conservative” voice on the panel, so I guess he was trying harder than the others to praise Vance.

From my perspective, Walz neither helped his and his ticket’s cause, nor hurt it. Again, I’m not a “performance” guy. I care about substance and character. And to me, Walz stood steady on those.

I enjoyed a moment with Richard M. Nixon — the Twitter feed, not the original. He tweeted that “Walz is nervous.” I replied, “Well, so were you, sir…” Which was true. And that was the beginning of people who looked better on TV having an unfair advantage.

In his podcast, Ezra Klein maintained that it all came down to one thing: Vance refusing to say that he would stand up to Trump the way Mike Pence did, refusing to try to overturn the results of the election. And yes, that is the most substantial objection to him, among many.

At the time, though, I responded to something that I felt spoke more generally to the importance of this decision voters face:

I should probably end by saying what I have before, which is that this debate is something of relative insignificance. Y’all know that I hate all “debates” as they now exist, because they do little to showcase qualities that lend themselves to the job being sought.

And of course, I can’t remember a time when I made my own decision about a presidential candidate based on his or her running mate. So this makes vice-presidential debates even less important than the top-ticket contests. But still, we all know so little about each of these guys that I watched it, and above is what I thought.

18 thoughts on “The veep debate”

  1. Barry

    Didn’t watch even a second of it. I was watching METV and Green Acres.

    I saw that Trump accused the North Carolina governor of wanting people to drown. What an insane thing to say for the mentally deranged Donald Trump.

    Especially for a man (Trump) who we know tried to play politics by not approving aid for Democrat led areas when he was in office. What a lunatic.

    Then accused Joe Biden of not talking to Governor Brian Kemp. That was a lie of course and Kemp pointed out to the press that he had talked to Joe Biden (Biden had called him first and he called Biden right back after missing the call) and said that President Biden promised him all the resources he needed and if he needed anything else, just to call him.

    So, I was pleased to see Kemp call Trump a liar (without having to say it that way- which he should have anyway).

    I was glad to see on Friday Republican Senator Tillis of North Carolina blast all the lies in the media an that other politicians and mostly right wingers are saying about the storm response in North Carolina. He called the response he had seen “great” so far.

    Another GOP mayor in Tennessee also blasted the lies he had been seeing about the federal government not helping out. He said his opinion was the response had been really good.

    A liar like Trump is always going to lie – and so are his team/surrogates.

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    1. Brad Warthen Post author

      Green Acres, huh?

      I’m trying to decide which is a purer distillation of absurdism — listening to Trump, or listening to Eb.

      Once thing I’m sure of — Eb is a lot funnier. I love him…

      Oliver Douglas : Eb, why don’t you pull up the weeds that are growing in the wheat.

      Eb Dawson : Can’t I just pull up the wheat? There ain’t as much of that.

      My favorite line of his, I think (I can’t find it at the moment) is when he comes in for dinner, and Lisa has made spaghetti and meatballs on at stick, and Oliver is trying to explain how utterly absurd that is, goes something like: “Oh, boy! Spaghetti and meatballs on a stick! Just like Momma used to make!”

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      1. Barry

        Green Acres actually had some terrific writers. It was a bit like The Office of its day. A lot of their lines have double meanings (and I don’t mean sexual). Some of the double meanings refer to other popular 1960s shows, which they would directly reference from time to time.

        Absurdly silly, and some of it didn’t work, but a lot of it did.

        I learned how talented those writers were when I watched one of the Green Acres Returns movies that came along 10+ years later but the original writers had moved on and the new lines were just stupid.

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        1. Brad Warthen Post author

          I never saw the “Returns” thing, but I can imagine. Those kinds of things are seldom good, anyway…

          I remember when they did the Beverly Hillbillies (same fictional universe as Green Acres, by the way) a bunch of years later, and Buddy Ebsen had forgotten how to be Jed. That was sad, because he had been so perfect.

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  2. Ken

    ” we all know so little about each of these guys”

    Speak for yourself. Having read his book, followed his campaign for the Senate and, now, for the office of VP, I know more than I ever wanted to know about the guy, enough to know that he should not be anywhere near the office he’s seeking. Lindsey Graham is a shameless opportunist, but Vance is an opportunist on steroids.

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    1. Brad Warthen Post author

      Well, I certainly know those things, but that doesn’t meet the standard I’m thinking of.

      I know Joe Biden, and have for a long time, based on millions of data points.

      Unfortunately, I knew more than I wanted to know about Donald Trump starting back in the ’80s. And he hasn’t gone away yet, but keeps intruding upon everyone’s consciousness.

      I’m gradually getting to know newcomer Kamala Harris, but would still go no further than to say I don’t know anything about her yet that would prevent me from voting for her, especially when the alternative is the worst person ever to hold the nomination of a major party in our history.

      I know less than that about Vance. I know I don’t like him, but that’s about it so far.

      Being painfully intuitive, my impressions tend to assemble themselves in an amorphous pattern, over time. With me, making up my mind about somebody is seldom a matter of this thing, that thing and another thing. It’s a mass of impressions…

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  4. Doug Ross

    Time to accept the reality. It is more likely that Trump will win than Harris. Unless there are some last minute mail in ballot anomalies, the tides have shifted from the “fresh, new, Kamala” buzz to the reality of what she is and why she couldn’t win a single delegate the last time she ran for President. She’s lost black voters, Latino voters, and working class voters. Her strategy of avoiding anything but softball interviews imploded with the Fox News interview which exposed her hypocrisy, lying, and questionable intelligence.

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    1. Brad Warthen Post author

      Wow. Maybe you should take a glance, just for a moment, in the other direction and drink in the raging, escalating insanity that you demand that rational people who love their country “accept:”

      Under the stress of the final weeks of the campaign, Trump has somehow become ever more bonkers than he already was. Over the past week, he proposed using the National Guard or the military against “radical left lunatics” on Election Day, and he called the United States an “occupied country.” He stood onstage at what was supposed to be a “town hall meeting” and swayed and danced to his campaign playlist for 39 minutes. He bickered with an interviewer at the Economic Club of Chicago and slurred words at a rally in Georgia. He threatened to impose 2,000 percent tariffs on cars. He called his opponents the “enemy from within” and made up stories about migrant gangs taking over buildings in Colorado. He held a Fox News event with women and proclaimed himself “the father of IVF,” then acknowledged he asked a female Republican senator to “explain IVF” to him….

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      1. Barry

        Don’t forget –

        1) This weekend Trump said the violence on January 6th was really “peace and love”

        2) Just a week or so ago Trump was interviewed by a podcaster. Trump spent some of his time insulting America and talking about how awful our country was

        The podcaster pushed back and said “America is a great country.”

        Trump said he didn’t agree (assuming I guess the guy would back down). The podcaster didn’t and repeated that America is a great country.

        It’s interesting to see right wingers vote for a man who spends a lot of his time talking about how awful the United States of America is.

        and right wingers always cry and whine when people cite people close to Trump who have said he would regularly insult Americans who have died or been injured in war as if it’s impossible for a man who regularly insults the country to say such a thing.

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          1. Barry

            Did you see good Christian Speaker of the House Mike Johnson defend Trump’s comments?

            (There are all sorts of videos online of Mike Johnson speaking at various churches over the last few years sounding very much like a pastor- standing in pulpits- talking about “the Lord” and even some where he complains about the lack of a Godly culture)

            Sure is odd to see a guy like Mike Johnson defending Donald Trump talking about how large Arnold Palmer’s penis was while standing in front of a group of women, men and their children.

            Of course, we have our own Nancy Mace who says she’s been raped before and is supposedly said to be very serious about defending women against inappropriate men- defending Donald Trump and accusing all the women who have accused Trump of sexual assault of being liars.

            The only thing most of these folks want- pastors and priests included- is political power.

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  5. Barry

    I’ve noticed your buddy Bryan Caskey -who is an attorney in Columbia and use to post on here- can’t seem to post anything on X except sports posts and re-post insults about Democrats.

    Would be odd to seek him out for legal advice if you support Democrats or Democrat social positions. Of course, I never would.

    Seems safe to assume Bryan supports that bile that Trump spews. He sure can’t seem to post a critical comment about it.

    That’s like ‘good Christian” Speaker Mike Johnson who this morning when asked why Trump was talking about Arnold Palmer’s penis at a rally in Pennsylvania couldn’t dare criticize Trump for talking about a man’s genitalia.

    Does Bryan support Trump’s comments about using the military against citizens who think like me? It’s an honest question given Bryan’s social media posts.

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    1. Brad Warthen Post author

      Oops, I see you DID notice the Arnold Palmer rant, which I just mentioned in response to something else.

      As for Bryan, he’s not just “my buddy,” on this blog he’s “our buddy.” I’m sorry he doesn’t post the way he did. He understands the point of this blog.

      And coincidentally, I had a nice short discussion with him over the weekend about baseball, and if I get time, I’ll elaborate upon it here. WORLD SERIES COMING! DODGERS vs. YANKEES!…

      Or as Jack Keefe would have said, the “World Serious…”

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      1. Barry

        Bryan is not my buddy, not online, not off-line.

        People that are allergic to criticizing Republicans on their social media and entirely ignore Trump and Republican comments and focus exclusively on Harris and Walz are never- not in a million years- my buddy. In fact, just the opposite.

        But, I can be a “buddy” to anyone that can regularly criticize both (remember, I”m not voting for Harris either.)

        See the fake video Republicans are spreading online that has a man who accuses Tim Walz of an inappropriate sexual relationship with himself when he was in high school? It’s got millions of views and has spread widely online.

        The man’s name was a real student of Walz when he was a teacher. The man in the video is not the student.

        The Washington Post tracked down the real student who lives in Hawaii. He’s supporting his former teacher, Walz. He’s very upset about his name being used this way. The video is not him of course. Whoever made the video stole his name and some aspects of his life that make the video seem real. But the video is clearly not him and, of course, never had any interaction with Walz at all other than he was at the same high school.

        The video is a lie, a particularly cruel one accusing a former teacher of sexual assault.

        I’m sure some folks could never criticize such a fake video though. They just can’t do it.

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  6. Brad Warthen Post author

    Doug, I didn’t read a word after your opening, “Willing to put your money where your delusion is?”

    I’m finally arriving at the conclusion that you just don’t get the idea of civil discussion…

    And I don’t have time for this….

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