I watched a live stream on YouTube with some additional commentary by Robert Reich and Michael Lahanas-Calderón. I described my plan in a comment on Mano’s blog and won’t repeat that here.
Walz is not a skilled debater. Although I thought he came prepared, he did stumble in small ways a couple of times; and it came out that, some years ago, he had claimed to be in China during the Tiananmen Square uprising when he hadn’t actually arrived until months later.
Vance did much better than I expected. He actually spoke in complete sentences and paragraphs and didn’t display any of the incoherence, cognitive decline, or terrible-twos lashing out that we expect from Trump. He’s clearly smarter and more competent than Trump; and I fear that that makes him more dangerous. Indeed, if Trump wins the election, he might not last the whole four years; so there’s a real possibility that Vance could actually be President.1
Vance repeated all the lies about things being better under Trump than under Biden, even claiming that Trump saved the Affordable Care Act when he actually tried to get rid of it. (It was McCain’s thumbs-down during the Senate vote that saved Obamacare.)
One thing that jumped out at me and that I haven’t seen mentioned anywhere else is that Vance would try to tear into Harris on immigration, the economy, or pretty much any subject, by asking, “She’s been in office for over three years now. Why hasn’t she done anything yet?” Uh … because she’s the Vice President, not the President, and so not the one in charge?2
The moderators, CBS’ Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan, were mostly even-handed, although I noticed one asymmetry: O’Donnell did fact-check Vance on one of his many lies about the economy during the Trump years; but Brennan pressed Walz rather pointedly on his misstatement about being in China during Tiananmen Square. I fear that Walz’ misstatement will be all over TV news while all the lies about things being better under Trump will remain old news that nobody cares about.
1This is a reason to vote for Harris next month. Don’t abstain, don’t vote for a third-party candidate. Harris and Trump are the only possibilities, and we really don’t want another four years of Trump (and maybe Vance as president for part of it).
2It occurs to me that it might be fun to start talking about the Vance campaign and possible Vance presidency suggesting that Vance is the one in charge. That might send Trump over the edge even more rapidly.