Given America’s polarization and the daily tone and tenor of this presidential election, it’s hard to believe that people have stumbled upon a rerun of a different era in American politics rather than the 2024 vice presidential debate. No wonder.
In some ways, this debate is similar to the vice presidential debates America was accustomed to in the pre-Trump era, with essentially a weeklong break between the first and second presidential debates. It felt like a throwback to. The flashback vibes I felt most were the 2000 and 2004 Dick Cheney debates (vs. Joe Lieberman and John Edwards), or the 2008 and 2012 Joe Biden debates (vs. Sara Palin and Paul Ryan).
Tuesday night’s interactions were always very respectful. J.D. Vance and Tim Walz each seemed to be doing everything in their power to protect their direct opponents from certain harsh criticisms they were making against the top of the ticket. If you’re a very partisan person online, you were probably shocked at how polite and respectful this discussion was. (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 much more substantive material and had a much more serious tone than the debates we’ve seen featuring the top of the ticket. The only major issue that wasn’t touched on, and that I would have liked to know more about, was the broader threat that China poses to the Pacific region in general, as well as issues specific to Taiwan.
But kudos to the CBS News team for creating a solid issue matrix. Most covered a lot of what voters wanted to discuss. And, in defense of CBS News, neither China nor Ukraine are considered top priorities by voters, even though both may be among the most important challenges for the next U.S. president.
But there’s something else about this discussion that bothers me. It’s not hard to conclude that former President Donald Trump himself is making it nearly impossible to hold a debate like the one Vance and Walz participated in Tuesday night. That’s a shame. We could actually use a presidential-level debate similar to the one we witnessed Tuesday night.
But President Trump never participated in a debate that didn’t devolve into something more punitive, sometimes even immature and juvenile. (Do I even need to mention the size of his hands?) What I’m interested in is the tone and tenor of this debate simply reminding voters of what politics is like when President Trump is not on stage. The question is whether it will end up hurting President Trump just because of that.
But the real question about this debate in the short term is whether it will have any impact on the current election campaign.
History tells us that this argument will have little or no impact. By the end of the week, it will be clear from each side just how important this debate was. How many debate moments are both sides going to expand on over the next 24 hours? My guess is nothing or very little, but let’s learn together!
Going into this debate, I expected both vice presidential candidates to focus more on the top of the ticket. And most of the time, they were just typing and playing. Walz went after Trump in nearly every answer, regularly finding ways to praise Vance in ways that appeared anti-Trump. Vance similarly sought to throw shade at Walz by praising the governor’s empathy and concern for certain issues, contrasting him with Vice President Kamala Harris.
But what was a little surprising to me was that Walz turned out to be more aggressive against Trump than Vance was against Harris.
After all, the vice presidential candidate’s No. 1 job in these debates is to make the case to the top of the ticket. Therefore, it is very interesting to me that the strategy chosen by Vance appears to be one designed to improve his own personal reputation.
Perhaps if he improves his personal rating it might help the overall ticket, but I’m skeptical it will help at all. Dan Quayle was very unpopular in 1988, especially due to his poor performance in debates, but his unpopularity still didn’t affect him at the top of the ticket. In fact, that year’s Democratic vice presidential candidate, Lloyd Bentsen, may have finished the campaign as the most personally popular of the four candidates on the ticket. Still, that didn’t help the top Democratic candidates at all.
Mr. Vance may have made considerable progress in solidifying his image for the future, say in the 2028 presidential race. But it’s unclear how much this will help Trump. And I’m still surprised that Vance did little to remind viewers that Harris is still part of the Biden administration.
In fact, he seemed to ignore Biden’s name, instead citing just Harris’ name multiple times. It’s an interesting decision, given that the Trump campaign appears desperate to reconnect Biden’s unpopular brand with Harris. If Vance’s role is simply that of an “attack dog,” I’m not sure Vance was as proactive as expected on this front.
As for Waltz, his performance was the very definition of uneven. I could really feel his nervousness, especially at the beginning. He was clearly telling the truth when he reportedly told Harris during the vice president vetting process that debate was not for him. But Walz was bullish on the case against Trump, particularly when he was prosecuting the Jan. 6 and abortion cases. He wasn’t very good at defending Biden and Harris’ actions in general.
His worst moment is clear at this point. His inability to acknowledge the exaggerated statements made in and around Tiananmen Square while in China was painful to watch. He eventually got there, but he looked like a kid looking at his notecard and trying to justify why he cheated on a test.
This was a moment that could have been completely avoided if the Harris-Waltz camp had done just one thing. The idea was to have Walz sit down and do a series of accountability interviews, similar to the Sunday show. But Operation Harris-Waltz is sticking to this form of “preventive defense” because it believes harsh media interviews could distract attention from President Trump.
Now, to prevent losses in a soccer match, a defense is better than no defense. But what they also do is ensure that the contest is close by the end. It may seem risky to sit down for more interviews, but if you want to know whether the Harris campaign can win by more than 1 percentage point in one battleground state, perhaps these interviews are worth the effort. This could help reassure vulnerable voters that the ticket is valid. To work.
The real unknown aftermath of this debate is whether it will be the last debate of this presidential cycle.
President Trump continues to say he believes it is too late for another debate. But after tonight, as a viewer, I wanted to see more follow-up on what I heard from the VP candidates. I have many more questions for both of you, and I’d like them to answer them together on stage. I’m sure there are quite a few undecided and half-decided voters who would like an extra layer in evaluating the mettle of the two candidates.
I suspect Trump and his team are convinced that Harris needs a new debate even more than Trump. And the Trump team isn’t denying how badly the first matchup turned out for Trump. It is unclear whether another debate will help Mr. Trump, but he still needs a big stage to make his closing argument, and a debate is the only big enough stage.
If Tuesday night was the last word, the good news is that both vice presidential candidates left a fairly positive impression on voters, perhaps even more positive than we so-called experts expected. It means that he left behind.
