As everyone expected, it was a boring and near-meaningless debate between Politician Man and Politician Woman. Each side will view their candidate as winning, and will be slightly enthused if they watched the debate. Undecideds who lean toward Republican ideology will be pushed a bit in that direction, while undecideds who lean toward Democratic ideology will be pushed a bit in that direction. The next big headline will completely wipe out any
real effects, probably within days.
Everyone was so shell-shocked from last week that any interruptions or time extensions are liable to be viewed as horrific, though what went on here was totally in-line with what would normally be considered a civil debate. Some interruptions are normal in a debate. Because people would obviously be especially sensitive this time, though, I'm surprised that Pence was as aggressive on bending the rules as he was, and some people will judge him harshly for it. Both candidates did clearly hobble themselves by being more strict about following the rules than is normal or comfortable.
Since the whole thing is electorally meaningless, it's a bit pointless to declare a winner, but I'll do so anyway. Kamala did OK, and I think that her points were on the whole slightly more appealing to average viewers, but Pence had much better delivery and ability to adapt/rebut. I think that if you took an undecided person, had them watch the whole debate, and then polled them before they watched any other news coverage, Pence would win by a comfortable margin.
Random notes based on my notes while watching:
- Kamala's delivery is overall not terrible. She sounds like she knows what she's talking about. She looks less calm than Pence, though, with some stilted delivery of rehearsed lines and a poor ability to adapt.
- Plenty of spin and dodging from Pence, but I see less obvious lying than Kamala
- Pence runs too long too often
- Kamala's virus points are probably more convincing to the average person
- Effective point from Pence on Biden's handling of swine flu
- Both dodged on questions of presidential succession. Pence's use of the "free time" seemed more effective.
- Kamala got a lot of mileage out of Woodward's stuff, and it all comes across pretty effectively
- Kamala makes several economic points that will be attractive to people (creating jobs, taxing the wealthy, protecting healthcare, infrastructure, etc.), though Pence's rebuttal was pretty effective
- Pence was pretty successful at treating Kamala with kid gloves, to the point where she comes off as rude/aggressive in several exchanges.
- Kamala's reference to a Pew poll showing that other countries trust Xi more than Trump is a novel and effective argument.
- Kamala's arguments around Trump's interactions with Russia & Iran are too esoteric to be effective.
- It's a good line of attack for Biden/Harris to connect the supreme court to the ACA, and Kamala made this argument effectively. Pence should've used his time to somehow rebut this strong argument, but instead he wasted his breath on the esoteric court packing point. He was successful in pressuring Biden/Harris further on court packing, but most people don't understand or care about this.
- Pence ideologically has to defer to the grand jury in the Breonna Taylor case, but it looks really bad because it's such an esoteric argument. It's like defending O.J. Simpson: people "know" that Breonna Taylor was not treated fairly, and no amount of legal mumbo-jumbo is going to change their minds. He should've avoided mentioning her particular case at all. (BTW, pretty rich for "Copmala" to complain about grand juries.)
- Good points from Pence on Kamala's terrible DA record. Trump/Pence should talk more about this.
- He couldn't do the argument justice in 5 seconds, but it's good for Pence to dismiss Bush's cabinet members the "establishment". Trump/Pence should talk more about this, and openly recognize that the Democratic party wants to bring together the bipartisan group who are responsible for 30+ years of failure and put them back in power.
FlyGate: Mike Pence seemingly had a fly land on him, perhaps a fruit fly bred by Hillary Clinton and released by one of her staffers.
The fly was sent by the deep state to infect Pence with coronavirus and put Nacy Pelosi in charge!
Kamala Harris had a valid point on Russian bounties though.
There's apparently
disagreement within the government on whether those bounties actually existed. (And random leaks from "the intelligence community" aren't trustworthy anyway...)
