JD Vance only boosted Donald Trump, Republicans while bug-eyed Tim Walz hampered Kamala Harris chances at VP debate
In the days leading up to Tuesday’s debate, Democrats went out of their way to say they were nervous about how Gov.Tim Walz would perform.It was an obvious effort to lower expectations in the hopes Walz would beat the gloomy forecasts and thus look like an upset winner.They didn’t lower expectations far enough.Walz had occasional moments of clarity, but he spent most of the night giving rambling answers that filled the allotted time without reaching a clear conclusion.
The only thing he won was finishing first in the number of non-sequiturs.Voters looking for a point where they could say “aha, that’s what the policy would be” had to be frustrated.I know I was.His opponent, Republican Sen.JD Vance, was by far the smarter, more thoughtful and more organized thinker on the stage.
His tone was pleasantly even, whether he was defending Donald Trump or attacking Kamala Harris.Because VP debates are largely seen as referendums on the presidential nominees, Vance’s performance was a boost for Trump and the GOP ticket.Walz, on the other hand, added to doubts about his readiness to serve, and thus was a minus for Harris.The difference in temperament was so stark that Walz at times looked bug-eyed as he speed-talked his way through answers that often veered off course, as if his brain couldn’t keep up with his mouth.“I’ve become friends with school shooters,” he said during an answer on school safety.“I’m a knucklehead at times” was his final weird answer to a question about why he falsely claimed to be in Hong Kong during the Tiananmen Square crackdown.Vance, by contrast, was cool, deliberate and polite to a fault.
He called the moderators by their first names,and began some answers by saying “I agree with Tim” or saying they had common ground, an obvious move to be the one creating a civil and substantive tone.As expected, Vance had to combat moderator bias, with Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan from CBS, far more interested in things ...