A Master Class

You can tell which candidate "won" last night's vice presidential debate by the ones saying it "doesn't matter." JD Vance put on a master class for candidates.

I’m no longer in the business of helping train and prepare GOP congressional and senate candidates for debates. I’ve played every role in debate prep, including a hostile moderator and, my favorite, role-playing the Democratic opponent. If I were, I’d bring a copy of last night’s debate and walk through it like a head coach does with game tapes.

“This is the way,” I would tell them, pointing out Senator JD Vance’s calm, sunny optimism, powerful segues, civility, and message discipline. It wasn’t perfect, and I’d have preferred different answers to some of the questions, including on abortion, but politically speaking, nearly every answer scored. Vance segued beautifully away from clearly hostile questions from the two school marm Karens serving as moderators.

I’ll just say this about the CBS moderators, then move on. They weren’t as bad as ABC’s horrid moderators in the last presidential debate. But they failed to follow their own rules, lied about not fact-checking the candidates (JD Vance only), and kept interrupting what would have been a helpful dialogue between the candidates to “move along” to other issues. Moderators sometimes have to get out of their own way, and Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan failed. Voters like to see candidates engage thoughtfully and respectfully. We were denied that opportunity.

CBS sidelined the one correspondent who would have proven a valuable moderator, chief Washington correspondent Major Garrett, a 40-year veteran of Washington and a bona fide journalist. Instead, we got the Karens in full AWFUL mode (Affluent White Female Urban Liberal).

What did we take away from Gov. Tim Walz’s performance? Despite his aw-shucks manner and an array of emotive facial expressions, he has trouble with the truth: “I’ve become friends with school shooters.” He actually said that. See his comment below in full context.

It struck me how both he and Vance actually agreed on the mental health crisis driving much of our gun-related violence, but the former NRA member Walz couldn’t help himself - he eventually placed the blame on guns. And by the way, Gov. Walz, the NRA, and many other gun rights organizations, especially the National Shooting Sports Foundation, still provide outstanding gun safety programs. Even online.

Speaking of questions, not a single one on Ukraine or China, and only scant reference to the new East Coast dock strike that will severely impact American farm and manufacturing exports to Europe, Africa, and elsewhere. But lots of questions about climate change (including a lecture from moderator O’Donnell) and abortion.

And while the Karens tried to fact-check Vance on climate change and immigration (status of Haitian immigrants in Springfield, OH - no reference to eating dogs and cats, however), there was no fact-check on a whopper made by Walz about Amber Thurmond, the woman who died in Georgia when she used an abortion drug to cause a late-term abortion, and then was denied an essential, legal procedure by an Atlanta hospital that might have saved her life.

Speaking of whoppers, I’ll grant the Karens this: They directly asked Walz about his false claim about being in China during the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. He said that he sometimes is a knucklehead and eventually misspoke. His false claims about his military service and sudden retirement to avoid deployment to Iraq would have been a more relevant question. But the CBS Karens had other ideas. It was a lame attempt to “look fair” and set up the following question of Vance about his past Trump comments.

And the first question was idiotic - would you support or oppose a preemptive strike by Israel on Iran? Pre-emptive strikes, by definition, are made in the face of an imminent attack, which in this case already happened, given the launch of nearly 200 ballistic missiles into Israel by Iran earlier in the day. As the Times of Israel noted, Walz equivocated, but Vance didn’t.

Predictably, O’Donnell and Brennan asked questions of Vance about his past statements and epiphany concerning Donald Trump. They did ask a vague question about economic policy but did a poor job of following up or focusing on inflation (Vance more than made up for it).

While Walz did a respectable job - when he wasn’t prevaricating - launching Harris campaign talking points on abortion, guns, and concluding with Harris’s “politics of joy,” Vance nailed home at every opportunity two things: comparing the Biden-Harris record on the economy with the Trump years, and criticizing Harris for failing to promote any of her ideas during her nearly four years as Vice President. Vance expertly refused to allow Walz to paint their campaign as one of change. His closing statement - he got the last word - was a tour de force:

I believe, as a person who wants to be your next Vice President, that we are a rich and prosperous enough country where every American, whether they're rich or poor, ought to be able to turn on their heat in the middle of a cold winter night. That's gotten more difficult thanks to Kamala Harris's energy policies. I believe that whether you're rich or poor, you ought to be able to afford a nice meal for your family. That's gotten harder because of Kamala Harris's policies. I believe that whether you're rich or poor you ought to be able to afford to buy a house. You ought to be able to live in safe neighborhoods. You ought to not have your communities flooded with fentanyl. And that, too, has gotten harder with Kamala, because of Kamala Harris's policies.

Now, I've been in politics long enough to do what Kamala Harris does when she stands before the American people and says that on day one she's gonna work on all these challenges I just listed. She's been the Vice President for three and a half years. Day one was 1400 days ago. And her policies have made these problems worse. Now I believe that we have the most beautiful country in the world. I meet people on the campaign trail who can't afford food, but have the grace and generosity to ask me how I'm doing and to tell me they're praying for my family. What that has taught me is that we have the greatest country, the most beautiful country, the most incredible people anywhere in the world.

But they're not going to be able to achieve their full dreams with the broken leadership that we have in Washington. They're not going to be able to live their American Dream if we do the same thing that we've been doing for the last three and a half years. We need change. We need a new direction. We need a President who has already done this once before and did it well. Please vote for Donald Trump. And whether you vote for me or Tim Walz, I just want to say I'm so proud to be doing this, and I'm rooting for you. God bless you and good night.

While both candidates were relatable, Vance connected more firmly on the issues that matter to most middle-class Americans, with record credit card debates in the face of higher grocery and energy prices. If policies matter over “dad vibes,” Vance moved the ball upfield for the Trump campaign.

The debate was remarkably civil and respectful of the audience despite the CBS moderators. I would give Walz a solid B- for slightly exceeding expectations but dings for his falsehoods on abortion and the failure to understand his legislation, signed into law by him, that allows doctors to deny life-saving care to infants born from a botched late-term abortion. Vance got it right; Walz lied.

The moderators’s last question dealt with the “State of Democracy,” a clear attack on the tired, old claims about Trump’s complaints about the 2020 election. Vance did his best to state the obvious and segue into the future and voters’ more pressing concerns, but he will still be criticized for not answering the question to their satisfaction. Vance’s abortion responses made me wince as a pro-life voter, but I get the politics. He deftly segued to the campaign’s desire for “pro-family” policies, which resonate. The questions and discussion about the “child care crisis” were interesting but inconsequential. However, the immigration discussion was a solid win for Vance, and kudos to CBS for allowing Vance to respond when O’Donnell stupidly tried to “fact-check” him, which they promised they wouldn’t.

The most touching moments may have been just before and immediately following the debate, with the cameras on and media talking heads yapping away. Both candidates warmly shook hands and shared smiles and well wishes. Each introduced their spouses to each other on stage after the debate ended. That was nice to see. It proves that behind the candidates and their campaigns are real people. “Midwestern nice,” someone called it, but it can be found anywhere outside the Acela corridor and even there on rare occasions.

Vance earned a solid A, while the moderators deserve a generous D. The right will spin it as a clear Vance win, outclassing Walz. The left will spin that the debate doesn’t matter. It may matter if Trump watched and learned from his understudy’s disciplined and disarming manner. If Trump can zero in on comparing his four-year record of low inflation, housing and energy affordability, and peace abroad, he can win. He has yet to demonstrate that message discipline, and I’m not optimistic he will.

And legacy media should never be allowed to host or moderate a debate again.