The VP debate: What did we learn?
As a sequel to the “festival of incoherent interruption” President Trump delivered a few weeks ago, last week’s vice presidential debate was a “jarringly normal” affair, said Eric Levitz in NYMag.com. The plexiglass screens separating Sen. Kamala Harris and Vice President Mike Pence served as a troubling reminder of the White House coronavirus outbreak, but the candidates traded talking points with a “passive-aggressive politesse” that recalled “the olden days of 2014,” before Trump’s fateful descent of his golden escalator. Neither Harris nor Pence delivered a knockout punch. But with Joe Biden’s poll lead widening just weeks before the election, that means “Trump lost.” Harris’ most effective minutes came at the very beginning, said Shane Goldmacher in NYTimes.com, when she delivered “a devastating critique of the Trump administration’s handling of the pandemic” and described the horrifying toll: 210,000 dead, 7 million cases, and more than 30 million filing for unemployment. For his part, Pence tried to portray Biden and Harris as far-left extremists who’d raise taxes and enlarge and pack the Supreme Court; Harris’ “weakest moment” came when she clearly dodged the court question. But the debate didn’t change the dynamic of the race, and “a fly generated most of the buzz,” when it landed and lingered for a full two minutes on Pence’s helmet of snow-white hair.
This debate will help the GOP ticket, said Jim Geraghty in NationalReview.com. Pence’s “plainspoken Midwestern common sense” was soothing for voters unsure about Trump, while Harris’ “attack-dog” derision was grating to viewers outside her fan base. She did not dispel the fears of moderate voters that the California liberal will strong-arm Biden to embrace leftist policies and/or replace the doddering 77-year-old to “become the 47th president.”
Harris tried to stick to her moderate-sounding talking points, said Beverly Hallberg in WashingtonExaminer.com, but her body language betrayed her contempt for Pence: “frantic, often choppy” hand gestures and a fusillade of squints, glares, and sarcastic smiles.
Like every female candidate, Harris “had to walk the inch-wide line that separates being submissive from being harsh,” said James Fallows in TheAtlantic.com. She had the added challenge as a black woman of having to come off as “strong but not angry.” Harris met these unjust standards with aplomb. Pence embodied unearned male confidence— consistently ignoring his time limits, obnoxiously interrupting Harris, and talking over the female moderator. The “unflustered” Harris’ smiling but steely reminders that “I’m speaking, Mr. Vice President” may have widened her ticket’s 23-point poll-lead among women. Pence’s “man-splainy” attempt to dominate Harris probably delighted his boss, said Michelle Cottle in The New York Times, but “it likely did not impress many women voters.”
If this debate helped the Biden-Harris ticket, said Alyssa Rosenberg in WashingtonPost.com, it was by reminding viewers of how restfully “boring” our political discourse can be without a narcissistic Twitter addict dominating every news cycle. The familiar spectacle of two civil, sane politicians dodging questions and trading “zingers” made a return to relative normalcy feel close at hand. It could be a mirage, said The Washington Post in an editorial. At the end of the debate, Pence dodged a question about whether he and Trump will commit to accepting the election results. How close can “normal” politics really be if the incumbent administration doesn’t know if we should “have a democracy at all?”