Why J.D. Vance might be Reagans real Republican heir

“Saturday Night Live” joined in the Tim Walz pile-on this weekend, mocking the Minnesota governor’s disastrous debate performance.The vice-presidential debate won’t affect the election’s outcome very much, though.Indeed, it has mostly dropped from discussion owing to events at home and abroad.But that doesn’t mean it won’t have lasting impact.

J.D.Vance’s performance was so compelling that it has immediately marked him as the next potential great force in national politics.Vance’s favorability rose more and his unfavorability dropped more among voters who watched the faceoff than Walz’s did.That’s not what most pundits predicted.

Those who knew the Ohio senator only from his recent past thought he would be pugnacious and base-focused like Donald Trump.Others who knew him only from the media-driven accounts of his off-the-cuff provocative statements expected him to be flippant, ignorant or primed to shock rather than persuade.Those of us who knew him better, though, knew better.

We knew Vance is a sharply articulate and intelligent man who could think on his feet.We also knew he’s focused on average Americans, not just the Trumpian MAGA base.That’s the Vance the nation saw last week.

He was polite, temperate and principled rather than ideological.He could answer a question without recourse to memorized lines or talking points, unlike his increasingly flustered opponent, Tim Walz.Vance in short was stylistically a throwback to an earlier era of intelligence and manners while substantively someone very much in tune with the concerns of conservatives and independents open to a new politics of prudential problem solving.This was a man who could confound the so-called moderators rather than the other way around.

Someone who could walk, talk and chew gum at the same time.Someone who, if he handles himself well over the next few years, could produce the conservative-populist realignment that has been the low-hanging fruit of politics for more ...