This was a good ol’ fashioned butt kicking, folks.
To the extent that it’s ever possible to “win” a contest with no scoreboard, no “points”, no
judges (except for the American public) and/or no objective performance measuring criteria, there most definitely was one participant who came out ahead on Tuesday night in the Big Apple.
Conservatives looking for the future of the MAGA movement after Donald Trump perhaps got a glimpse of what things may look and sound like last night in New York City as Trump’s hand-selected running mate, J.D. Vance, took on cackling Kamala Harris’s hastily chosen second-in-line, “Tampon Tim” Walz in the 2024 version of the vice presidential debate.
In most respects, the program turned out as promoted, with Vance seemingly playing defense against the moderators (Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan of CBS) while Walz went on the attack against Trump and the traditional notion of American constitutional government. It almost seemed like Vance wasn’t even there seeing as Minnesotan Walz was primarily interested in attempting to bruise the former president.
Keep the focus on Trump. It’s been the Democrat strategy for years now.
Thankfully, Vance was more than up to the challenge of presenting the MAGA movement’s strong points and doing the moderators’ job by posing issues for Walz to answer to. It shouldn’t be forgotten that the Democrats are the incumbents this year. Cackling Kamala and senile Joe Biden’s policies have taken center stage since Inauguration Day, 2021, meaning they’re the ones the vice presidential candidates should be championing or condemning.
If you listened to Walz on the evening, it was as though Kamala n’ Joe had vastly improved immigration enforcement, built a bustling economy and inflation didn’t even exist. Granted, what did we expect Walz to say? The question is whether he made a convincing case to the American people.
Nope. Part of the problem is because Walz looked as though he didn’t know what he was supposed to say, and the things he mentioned that Harris purportedly believes in… informed viewers must’ve been mumbling, does she really think that? The problem with trying to fabricate an entire campaign is it’s like learning a course’s worth of new material, which was too much for the truth challenged Walz to handle in 90 minutes.
Plus, true to his pre-debate billing, Walz looked nervous and unsure of himself, unwittingly placed in a position far, far away from his familiar and comfortable confines of St. Paul Minnesota, wide-eyed and anxious and unable to find his “zone” to make a damaging case against Donald Trump, which was precisely what he was tasked with doing.
Vance was as concise and focused as Trump was easily distracted and uneven
It’s almost as though Vance studied Trump’s debating style for a crash course on “what not to do”, but the Ohioan (who is half his running mate’s age) largely avoided the pitfalls that plagued Trump three weeks ago. Foremost among those were falling for the traps the Democrat ticket set for the MAGA promoters, like being distracted regarding crowd size, enthusiasm – and how rich the Trump family was before Donald greatly increased their fortune.
Not to mention being suckered into a debate within a debate about whether Haitian illegal immigrants were preying (literally) on the pet population of Springfield, Ohio and arguing with the biased debate moderators over real time fact checks that went against his side. Vance was clever enough to “debate” the issues rather than get caught up in personal bugaboos.
Walz and the CBS debate “moderators” tried poking at Vance to get him off his game, it just didn’t work. Time and again Walz moved to make the debate all about Trump, but Vance wouldn’t let him, always bringing the discussion back to the issues at play. Using personal anecdotes and relatable stories from his past, the 40-year-old Vance bested the wide-eyed Walz who often appeared confused and flustered.
Walz even admitted that his being in China during the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre wasn’t true. Pressed by Brennan on the matter – one of the few times CBS made him do anything – Walz explained that he “misspoke” about being present for the world-altering international event. You could’ve turned out the lights right then and there. Stick a fork in ‘im. Walz was done at that point.
Walz couldn’t name a cut-off point for legalized abortion either. Babies’ lives are definitely in danger in The Gopher State. He’s as radical and extreme as Harris on the issue.
This isn’t to say that Trump is a poor debater. He’s not. As I indicated in my debate overview last month, Trump can’t resist, to the point of harming himself politically, the urge to punch back whenever he’s attacked. Much was made this campaign cycle about Trump rather enjoying the establishment media’s debate rule where microphones are turned off when the other candidate is speaking, which forced Trump to behave himself and stay away from repeating what happened four years ago when the Republican made a mess of the first debate by repeatedly imploring moderator Chris Wallace to intervene to correct Biden.
Talk about a fruitless mission. The media is on the Democrats’ side, right?
But somehow, Kamala, through her days of practice, got Trump off balance and distracted. “Tampon Tim” Walz wasn’t nearly as successful jabbing at J.D. Vance, however. For the first time he’s ever been on a stage this large (which is true of Walz, too), J.D. was unflappable, calm and cool. It’s almost as though Vance’s strategy was to not let Walz get to him, no matter what diversion tactics the old communist tried.
Vance clearly “won” the debate on content, and by his demeanor, on “style points” too. I thought this was definitely true four years ago, too, when Mike Pence debated a very green Kamala Harris, but the establishment media talkers didn’t agree. But it was a different world in 2020, with the Democrats taking generous advantage of the COVID panic and economic (and cultural) lockdowns to assault the measures Republicans took to combat the pandemic.
Walz even tried to insinuate, again, that Trump was responsible for the $4 trillion the government spent to combat the emergency, ballooning the deficit and leaving the government on unsound ground, a mess for senile Joe Biden and cackling Kamala to clean up.
It was kind of like shooting fish in a barrel back then, seeing as cackling Kamala – and Joe Biden before her – were able to say anything they wanted about the Chinese Communist Party, CCP (or Wuhan?) virus with Pence and Trump only able to retort that they were following the advice of the federal medical authorities – who had clearly led the nation astray.
Vance was not so restrained this time. In fact, it was Vance who had clearly ingrained a host of material to use against Walz on the current issues of the day. J.D. could virtually pick and choose what he wanted to make Walz answer for. Basically, Vance could tie cackling Kamala to hers and senile Joe’s horrendous record on immigration, the economy, energy policy (or in the Democrats’ example, lack thereof), foreign policy and a wealth of other subject matter.
Tim Walz follows long line of aggressive veep candidates who are off putting
As previously stated, Walz was frequently defensive, edgy, huffy, and situationally aggressive. Where was the “joy” in his presentation? Walz’s “performance” reminded this observer of Crooked Hillary running mate Tim Kaine’s showing eight years ago where the normally tepid Virginia senator couldn’t keep himself from interrupting Pence the entire time. It was annoying to the point of being disrupting, and viewers certainly noticed.
Walz didn’t interrupt like Kaine did, but his facial expressions and stupefied glares did the trick this time.
Tim Walz isn’t likable. Most folks from the upper Midwest give off an “aw shucks” type “vibe”, but Walz doesn’t. He’s kind of a jerk, though he did frequently agree with Vance on points the Ohioan made. It doesn’t matter that he has an autistic son or he’s been very “common”, Walz is not a nice person.
It’s been my theory that Democrats regretted permitting Harris to choose Walz almost as soon as they let it happen. Being described as the “Bernie Sanders of the Midwest” is not something that’s going to appeal to a lot of centrist voters. The establishment media has done their best to paint Vance as the “extreme” one, but a friendly looking Midwesterner with a solid background is never going to look “extreme” like Tim Walz does.
I don’t know how many times Walz mentioned “middle class” during his answers on Tuesday evening, but the balding Minnesotan could’ve basically trashed his entire debate strategy at the outset to simply concentrate on appearing “middle class” and radically pro-abortion. All the rest was superfluous fluff in an environment where the viewing audience couldn’t care less about the fact you were a high school teacher or a football coach decades ago.
Harken back to late August when Walz delivered his brief speech to the Democrat convention, an address filled with resume enhancers, butt covering avoidance of real substance and outright lies about his national guard service and other tenure as The Gopher State’s governor. Walz proudly champions owning a gun but couches his support for strict gun control laws on “protecting kids” as though Minneapolis’s streets haven’t been taken over from lack of a police presence after the George Floyd riots.
Protecting rioters inflicts much more destruction on the culture of a locale. Tim Walz should know.
One salient moment came fairly early in the program when the debate moderators broached the subject of Hurricane Helene and worked to tie in “climate change” to the conversation. Walz jumped on it, of course, explaining that farmers in Minnesota know that climate change is real and suggested that billions in federal money was called for to alleviate it.
Vance countered with the argument that if Democrats truly believed “climate change” was genuine they’d be promoting more American energy production and manufacturing since America is much “cleaner” than anywhere else in the world. Tell me it’s not true, Tim!
Again, Vance successfully steered the conversation back to where it belongs, on American policy, not pipedreams intended to woo gullible young voters. Who knows, maybe youth voters are talking about what Vance said last night and actually thinking for a change.
Impact on the 2024 overall race
Probably more than just about any other factor, it’s extraordinarily hard to see how the vice presidential debate will impact the overall race. Polls typically show that the veep choice is only considered by a small percentage of open-minded voters, and even focus groups can’t really shed light on it because every person is different.
Put it this way, not many people are willing to state that last night’s debate will make all the difference. If a voter, for example, loves “Tampon Tim” Walz but can’t stand Kamala Harris or Joe Biden, would it be enough to persuade him or her to vote Democrat? Or if a different voter appreciates J.D. Vance but is wary of Donald Trump, would a great Vance “performance” help reassure them?
Ultimately, I think the vice presidential debate is only good for one thing, to show undecided voters if the politician is ready to do the job and capable of stepping in if something happens to the top of the ticket.
Or if the running mate’s personality is so off-putting that they shed negative light on the presidential candidate – it could make a difference. Democrats are notorious about anointing nerve-grating politicians to serve in the vice president’s role. Did anyone actually want Tim Kaine to be vice president after his badgering of Mike Pence? How about Joe Biden’s mocking and laughing at Paul Ryan in 2012? Was it effective for the Obama ticket? Or hurtful?
Walz’s poor showing on Tuesday night wasn’t as strikingly noticeable as was senile Joe Biden’s in June, but it’s safe to say people will be buzzing over Vance for at least a little while now, wondering if they’d really want to put Walz in charge of the American economy. Or Kamala Harris either, for that matter.
Summing it up
Here’s thinking that viewership of Tuesday night’s debate will be several steps lower than for last months match between Trump and Kamala Harris. The apathetic voter just doesn’t care about who would be vice president because the chances of Walz or Vance actually becoming president in the next four years is so low.
Not even cackling Kamala Harris will be able to supplant senile Joe Biden for a few more months. There’s a decent chance she’ll never be president. Let’s hope not.
Like Trump, Vance rhetorically asked why Kamala n’ Joe hadn’t already implemented many of her policies while she had the chance for the past 3 ½ years. That’s really the heart of the matter, isn’t it? If Democrats are so full of solutions, why haven’t they passed them – or even advocated for them? Cackling Kamala n’ “Tampon Tim” are just mentioning “A new way forward” because it sounds nice.
People will search for relevancy from the vice presidential candidates. If that’s the measure, I guess that J.D. Vance came out the clear winner, but it’s partially due to how badly bug eye “Tampon Tim” Walz came off to Americans who care about the country’s leadership. The next month will determine the actual winner – and we’ll just have to wait.
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