Last night, the Vice-Presidential nominees took the stage in what was expected to be a rare policy-focused debate but instead turned into another insult and attack fest. Virginia Governor Tim Kaine and Indiana Governor Mike Pence locked horns in an effort to see who could blast the other’s running mate the most.
Speaking as one of tens of millions of Americans who is moved to nausea by the thought of either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump occupying the Oval Office, I eagerly anticipated the Kaine-Pence debate, if nothing else since it represented a chance to see the better halves of each ticket (my view) offer more substantive discussions of the issues. While that did actually occur, those discussions were overshadowed by the insults and interruptions. Here are five takeaways or unanswered questions from Tuesday night’s contest.
Mike Pence was the clear winner
VP debates typically have very little influence in the ultimate results of the top-of-the-ticket race and this was no different but it was a good night for the Hoosier state governor, on multiple levels. While Kaine was overly combative and rude, Pence was calm and cool. Kaine’s goal was clearly to try to get Pence to have to defend every single controversy about or crazy thing that has been said by Mr. Trump. Pence could have spent the entire 90 minutes on the defensive but instead left many of the accusations unchecked, choosing instead to pivot to counter-punches against Secretary Clinton.
What Pence did best was display the appearance of being a loyal foot soldier for his general (Trump) but without going on record agreeing with some of the craziness. At the same time, he showed the true conservatives in the audience that he was their man (more on this at the end of this article). Towards the end of the session, Pence articulated the pro-choice position with an eloquence that I have rarely heard. In particular, his criticism of Clinton’s position on partial-berth abortion was very strong.
This is not to say that Pence was perfect, far from it. When he attempted to parrot Ronald Reagan’s famous line “there you go again,” it fell completely flat. In addition, Pence will have to answer for the multiple times where he claimed that Donald Trump did not say the things that Trump did in fact say. Fact-checkers have said that he uttered more falsehoods than Kaine and that sounds right to me. Still, he won “big league” on style and, although it’s sad to acknowledge, style counts more than substance in these debates.
Tim Kaine was the clear loser
The Virginia Governor came out swinging from the very beginning of the 90-minute session. Kaine interrupted Pence relentlessly, so much that even he admitted today that his wife told him that it was too much. For the viewer at home, the interruptions were extremely annoying. He was clearly prepared with facts. It was as if he was trying to cram every single Trump attack into each of the six sections of the debate. By leveling so many of these attacks as an interruption, the power of many of them was lost. It was also unnecessary. Did Kaine think that, by now, all of the debate viewers were just learning for the time about all of the incendiary words spoken by the bombastic billionaire?
Kaine did from time to time present a positive vision for a potential Clinton presidency, but it was lost in the muck of the insults and interruptions.
Besides the irritating style, Kaine also displayed a total lack of understanding of where the camera was. This is critically important. Because the Commission on Presidential Debates chose to have the two candidates sitting at a table with the moderator (Elaine Quijano from CBS), that elevated the human instinct to speak directly to the moderator and not to the camera. The result was, on the split screen, Kaine was perceived by the viewing audience to be always looking away from Pence (see the attached photo). In reality he was speaking to Quijano but the audience wouldn’t know that. It was disjointed and just looked odd. Pence had some moments like this too but was far better at turning to the camera when making an important point.
Despite a poor performance, I personally I like Kaine and might very well have voted for him if he were at the top of the ticket and it was a choice between him and Trump. That’s not as much of an endorsement of Kaine as an indictment of the Donald. If it were down to Pence vs. Clinton, the choice would be easy and the election likely trending significantly in Pence’s favor.
What will Trump take away from the VP Debate?
Trump spent the first debate against Clinton wasting his time defending himself against her attacks rather than doing the “10 second response and then pivot to what you really want to talk about” dance. He could have learned a lot from Pence’s calm demeanor. The question is, how close was he paying attention? Certainly he was watching but he was also Tweeting and re-Tweeting. By some accounts he was sending a Tweet every two minutes or so.
Every human being who attempts to multi-task loses a little focus on one of those tasks. I started proof-reading and adding notes to this blog while I watching tonight’s Giants-Mets Wild Card game. Let’s just say that I’m more focused on the game which is why I’m now only proof-reading during the commercials. One of the biggest criticisms of Trump that has frequently been leaked by members of his campaign team is his lack of focus. He gets distracted very easily. My point is that if the Donald had time too send dozens of Tweets, the act of typing and reading them would have by definition taken his focus off the debate itself.
On the campaign trail today, Trump was touting Pence’s victory in the debate and what a great job he did making Pence his “first hire.” But there were also reports from CNN’s John King and Carl Cameron of Fox News that Trump was irritated that Pence didn’t defend him enough on stage. As with everything, it’s all about Donald Trump.
Earth to moderators: It’s about the candidates, not your questions
I felt kind of bad for Elaine Quijano as I do for almost any debate moderator because the job seems to me more of herding cats sometimes than creating the atmosphere for an enlightening political discussion. She lost control of the debate very early when Kaine kept interrupting. Pence said once that he was “still on my time” to which Kaine, turning to Quijano, asked “isn’t this a discussion?” Quijano’s response was in the affirmative which Kaine took as a license to ignore all pretense of polite conversation and talk over his opponent.
What I found especially irksome was when Quijano would do her own interrupting when the candidates were actually engaged in a substantive discussion. Two examples: Pence and Kaine were actually having a back-and-forth on tax policy and Quijano just shut and down and turned to the issue of law enforcement and race relations. The second and most egregious was when Pence and Kaine were jousting and on the issue of the Clinton Foundation and she kept jumping in with “let’s get back to North Korea.” Multiple times. And this was later in the debate when Kaine and Pence had gotten better at not talking over each other.
Moderators have to accept that the candidates are not always going to answer the very specific question they’re asking. When they’re grappling on a topic that voters care about, let them grapple. You don’t always have to “move on.” And if the candidate doesn’t answer your question specifically, you have to know when to give up on it.
Moderating these debates is very hard. Everyone who moderates these debates spends a great deal of time preparing their questions and the urge to not leave those questions “on the cutting room floor” is a natural human emotion. From what I remember, Elaine Quijano didn’t participate in any of the primary debates. I would expect the vastly more experienced Martha Raddatz, Anderson Cooper and Chris Wallace to do better in the final two presidential debates.
Long-term implications for Pence and Kaine
When Mike Pence originally joined the Trump Train by agreeing to the VP nomination, I speculated that he was committing political suicide and would go down on the Trumptanic. I am flip-flopping on that view. Assuming that Trump does lose (which is likely but certainly not certain), Pence has positioned himself as the champion of the conservative movement and a front-runner for the presidential nomination in 2020. He’s always been popular with conservatives and, because he’s been a loyal surrogate, will have the inside track of being the champion of the rabid Trump-ians. That will be a powerful combination.
That is also bad news for Ted Cruz who positioned himself as the true conservative of the 2016 race. The Texas Senator very rarely does or says anything that is not in pursuit of his presidential ambitions. When he took the stage at the GOP Convention and urged Republicans to “vote their conscience” without specifically endorsing Trump, he was booed off the stage. In recent weeks, Cruz has reversed course and endorsed the Donald but even the most generous cynic would have to conclude that he made a political calculation that Trump was going to lose and he didn’t want to be blamed for it.
If Trump goes on to win, of course, Pence will be the VP and possibly the president thereafter. If Trump fools me and all of the other skeptics and turns out to be terrific at the job, Pence looks better by osmosis. If Trump turns out to be a complete disaster, he may well quit or even be threatened with impeachment. If that happens, say hello to President Pence.
As for Tim Kaine, he is likely to actually become the Vice-President and thus a potential player in future Democratic primary competitions. Still, if he’s the veep, the earliest he would run for the top job is 2024 at which time he will be 66 years old. By that time I would expect the party will be looking for a younger face to be its standard bearer. This would change of course if Mrs. Clinton were to get sick or worse.
On the other hand, if Mrs. Clinton loses the presidency to Mr. Trump, it’s hard to imagine Kaine being a prime contender for the top job in 2020 based on his performance last night. The party, if it doesn’t look to a younger nominee, will likely gravitate to the darling of the progressives, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, who is the natural inheritor of the Bernie Sanders movement.
Thanks for reading.
Chris Bodig