The VP Debate – Ally’s Takeaway

Well, the VP debate was interesting. I thought it was MUCH better than the presidential one, for what that’s worth. I was pleasantly surprised that the moderators weren’t horrid (they had moments, but they weren’t horrid). I was very surprised at how well Walz did, as I’ve not seen him do much public speaking outside of rallies. Vance, on the other hand, did incredibly well. I was thrilled to see him answer each and every question put to him. The same cannot be said of Walz, Harris, OR Trump. If you’d like to read the transcript of the debate, you can do so here: CBS News Transcript.

Tim Walz got hit with a rough question fairly early on. The moderators asked him whether it was true that he’d lied about being in China during the Tienanmen Square protest in ’89. He did not answer the question. He went on a rambling diatribe about small town America and taking teams on trips out of country. The moderator had to remind him that he hadn’t answered the question, and ask it again. He still dodged it:

“MB: Governor, just to follow up on that, the question was, can you explain the discrepancy?

TW: No. All I said on this was, is, I got there that summer and misspoke on this, so I will just, that’s what I’ve said. So I was in Hong Kong and China during the democracy protest, went in, and from that, I learned a lot of what needed to be in governance.”

Almost immediately after, the moderator asked Vance about why he changed his stance from being anti-Trump to being the VP pick. I loved Vance’s response:

“…I’ve disagreed with the President, but I’ve also been extremely open about the fact that I was wrong about Donald Trump. I was wrong, first of all, because I believed some of the media stories that turned out to be dishonest fabrications of his record. But most importantly, Donald Trump delivered for the American people rising wages, rising take home pay, an economy that worked for normal Americans. A secure southern border. A lot of things, frankly, that I didn’t think he’d be able to deliver on. And yeah, when you screw up, when you misspeak, when you get something wrong and you change your mind, you ought to be honest with the American people about it.”

It was a gentle but firm kick in Walz’s teeth, that Vance could be honest about his mistakes, and about his personal growth.

During the debate, I watched both Vance and Walz as they were speaking, and as they were listening to their opponent speak. Vance could easily be described as being calm, presidential, or as Chris often says, “quietly competent.” Walz, for all he did a fairly decent job (and much better than I thought he would), looked wild and frantic during almost all of Vance’s responses. He would jot things down on his pad of paper, his eyes kind of bugging out of his head. Vance was quite the opposite, just had a little smile on his face for most of it, and listened calmly to Walz’s responses.

None of it was terribly rambling. They both actually focused on the questions at hand, though Vance did a much better job of actually answering them. As Vance actually pointed out at one point, Walz was in the difficult position of having to explain and stand up for policies he probably didn’t agree with, or wasn’t entirely sure about, because of his position as Harris’s running mate. It was a definite point in Vance’s favor.

The thing that impressed me most about this debate was that there was ACTUAL debate during small parts of it. I’m not sure if the moderators lost control, or if Vance and Walz just managed to answer in such a way that the moderators couldn’t cut them off without looking like jackasses, but they talked together. They agreed on a handful of things. They actually listened to one another’s responses, and found the parts they could agree on, and what they disagreed on. Vance pointed out that the end game for both candidates was the same: a prosperous, free America. The difference was in how to get there. Of course, Vance was talking only of Walz, and not of Harris, who he very firmly denounced at every opportunity. It was masterful, watching Vance separate Walz from Harris, making it clear that all the “stupid” stuff was Harris, and poor Walz was just kind of caught between a rock and a hard place. Genius debate technique, and I’m pretty sure most viewers didn’t catch it. You also had to see/hear it to “get it,” as it doesn’t come through in the transcript (imo).

Last week on the morning after the debate, I ran across a recap of the debate, and was amused to see what was said. I can’t find the article now, sadly, but it basically stated that the debate was unfair to Walz because all the topics were “heavily MAGA weighted.” I’m not entirely sure what that means, but I don’t think that the author of that article watched the same debate I did. There were certainly a lot more bows to the Dem side, again imo, but at least it wasn’t so obvious and rude as ABC. I know, low bar, but still. It helped a lot that both men were willing to follow the rules of the debate and did a nice job of timing. Vance hit it SO perfect most times that the moderators were left sort of hanging before saying, “Oh, you’re out of time now.” It was kind of funny by the third or fourth time that happened.

One of the most interesting parts, for me, was the moment after Vance attempted to complete an answer on Springfield OH. He was explaining about the influx of migrants, and said “illegal immigrants” instead of migrants. I get it… if it weren’t for Harris’s magic pen, they would be illegal, and would STILL get the same special treatment. So he attempted to explain, and was cut off. The moderators let Walz talk, and then began changing subjects. The following happened:

MB: …And just to clarify for our viewers, Springfield, Ohio does have a large number of Haitian migrants who have legal status. Temporary protected status. Norah.

JDV: Well, Margaret, Margaret, I think it’s important because… 

MB: Thank you, senator. We have so much to get to. 

NO: We’re going to turn out of the economy. Thank you.

JDV: Margaret. The rules were that you guys weren’t going to fact check, and since you’re fact checking me, I think it’s important to say what’s actually going on. So there’s an application called the CBP One app where you can go on as an illegal migrant, apply for asylum or apply for parole and be granted legal status at the wave of a Kamala Harris open border wand. That is not a person coming in, applying for a green card and waiting for ten years.

MB: Thank you, Senator.

JDV: That is the facilitation of illegal immigration, Margaret, by our own leadership. And Kamala Harris opened up that pathway.

MB: Thank you, Senator, for describing the legal process. We have so much to get to.

TW: Those laws have been in the book since 1990.

MB: Thank you, gentlemen. We want to have –

TW: The CBP app has not been on the books since 1990. It’s something that Kamala Harris created, Margaret.

MB: Gentlemen, the audience can’t hear you because your mics are cut. We have so much we want to get to. Thank you for explaining the legal process.

As you can see, Vance stepped right into that breach. “Hey now, you said no fact checking!” Chris and I discussed this, and we’re both of the opinion that someone on the moderators’ headphones said “knock it off!” and had them move along. It was very interesting. When the mics were cut, you could still clearly hear Vance, though it was obvious his mic was muted. But Walz, despite the fact that he was still talking, was barely heard.

The answer I disliked the most from Vance was the one about gun violence. It wasn’t a bad answer, but it wasn’t as decisive and “mic down” as I would have liked. His commentary about how we need to increase school resource officers was not to my liking, that’s for sure. Walz noted that he was of the generation that happily took their shotguns to school so they could go hunting afterward, but that “that was not today’s world.” I don’t like the idea of making our schools into fortresses, and resource officers aren’t always good or effective. I don’t want more theater, I want solutions. Vance did manage to get in a point about laws only affecting law abiding gun owners, and that illegal guns were still going to be a problem, but I fear it was lost in the conversation.

During the health care portion, Walz again brought up Project 2025, which still has nothing to do with Trump. He again brought up that the Republican party wants to ban IVF, which Trump has soundly trounced, instead going far enough to say that he will require it to be covered by insurance companies (not sure how that works, but that’s not the point right now). I will admit I didn’t understand the entirety of what was said about the ACA, so I’ll leave that to sit.

They ended with a bit of a kerfuffle over whether Trump has admitted he lost the election in 2020. Walz said he hasn’t, and Vance basically said there were problems but that there was a peaceful transition of power. I believe that, at this point, Trump has said he probably missed it by a tiny bit, but I don’t know where I heard that so don’t quote me. Regardless, we’re four years into a Biden presidency, so whether he got the votes or not, Trump lost. Some think the American people lost. I’d like to think we had time to learn… and many of us did.

At this point, I am looking for a “Vance 2028” sign for my front lawn. I am RAH RAH VANCE in a way I haven’t been since Gary Johnson. He stands, speaks, debates, and handles himself with grace and calm, and is the type of person I would absolutely LOVE to see manning the helm of this country. I think that having four years of him as VP to test his mettle would be good, and I think he would be an active VP. I’d love to see Vance/Haley come up, in any combination.

I am not as against Trump as I used to be. I’ve managed to see beyond the media lies and the hysteria. I still don’t think he’s the right person to be leading the Republican ticket, but he’s what we’ve got to work with, and so there’s that. Trump, for better or worse, is terribly divisive. I think if he’d gotten in at the last election, the country might have imploded. With the four years in between, I think we’ll have a much better chance of him doing a good job. I think he’s also learned a LOT in the past 8 years, and that he’s grown. Here’s to hoping the polls are red with republican votes (and not blood) on Nov 5th….