Prosecutor vs. ‘king of sound bites’
Voters may get insight on person who might have to lead country
California state Sen. Toni Atkins was going to ask Kamala Harris about her debate with Vice President Mike Pence when Harris animatedly interrupted.
“Let me just say something: He’s a good debater,” Harris said during a virtual fundraiser last month. “So I’m so concerned, like I can only disappoint.”
Harris’ assessment of Pence is echoed by Democrats and Republicans who know the vice president and understand the skills he brings as a former radio talk show host and the Trump administration’s most disciplined messenger.
Harris can rely on her prosecutorial skills – which have made more than one Republican squirm at congressional hearings – and her wattage as a rising star in the Democratic Party and first woman of color on a major party’s presidential ticket.
Her gender brings an extra element of interest be
cause of the Trump campaign’s struggles with female voters and because of the criticism Pence has received from the left for his practice of avoiding being alone with a woman other than his wife.
Even before President Donald Trump’s hospitalization for COVID-19 increased the stakes in the vice presidential debate, it was expected to draw more attention than Pence’s 2016 contest against Sen. Tim Kaine – a match that Republican strategist Michael Steel dubbed “Mayonnaise versus Miracle Whip.”
“I think that the debates that are most interesting are the ones where you have a pretty striking contrast between the candidates,” said Alan Schroeder, a presidential debate historian and author of the book “Presidential Debates: Risky Business on the Campaign Trail.
Older candidates can put more of a spotlight on younger running mates. Trump’s illness, and the pandemic in general, increase the possibility that Trump, 74, or Joe Biden, 77, might not be able to finish a term. (Pence is 61, and Harris is 55.)
“There’s a greater than normal possibility that one of the candidates in the VP debate will be president of the United States,” said Steel, who helped Paul Ryan prepare for the 2012 vice presidential debate.
Trump’s diagnosis adds to the questions about whether there will be additional presidential debates. After the first debate devolved into a slugfest, the Commission on Presidential Debates said it’s considering changes to ensure “a more orderly discussion of the issues.” Trump has not said whether he will participate if the rules are changed. If he doesn’t, Wednesday could be the final faceoff between the campaigns.
‘Temperature-lowering debate’
Voters may view the vice presidential contest as a better chance to understand the issues.
“Mike Pence is as smooth as Trump is crude,” Democratic strategist David Axelrod said on his podcast. “He’ll probably give the performance that Trump’s handlers wished that he had given.”
A Republican close to Pence and the debate prep process said he expects the 90 minutes to be a “temperaturelowering debate” in which both candidates will want to talk about policy and what the next four years would look like.
It’s not unusual that a vice presidential candidate has the task of cleaning up after a presidential debate.
After President Barack Obama’s weak first debate against Mitt Romney in 2012, one of Biden’s missions was to put the campaign on a course correction, Schroeder said.
Pence, he said, “has got a very tough job to do here.”
In an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll taken after the presidential debate, 49% of registered voters said Biden did better than Trump, and 24% said Trump was the winner. The poll showed Biden’s lead over Trump had grown to 14 percentage points.
“It puts a little bit of pressure on Pence to try and sort of breathe some life back into a campaign that was behind beforehand,” said Joel Goldstein, an emeritus professor of St. Louis University.
Though Pence has been through a vice presidential debate, this is a first for Harris. She hasn’t debated a Republican since her 2010 race for California attorney general. The tough questioning she’s known for at Senate hearings and jabs she delivered during the 2019 Democratic presidential primary debates came under different dynamics than what she will face Wednesday.
“I can’t stress how strongly I would say that doing a one-on-one debate in a general election is a much higher challenge than participating in primary debates with multiple candidates,” said Robert Barnett, a Washington lawyer who has prepared many Democrats for presidential and vice presidential debates, including by portraying Pence in Kaine’s 2016 debate prep. “The stakes are higher. The audience is bigger. The breadth of the issues is unlimited. And the cost of failure is enormous.”
Harris faces high expectations. After Biden announced her as his running mate, a common reaction was predictions of a slaughter. “I will take EXTREME pleasure watching Kamala Harris eat Mike Pence alive in a debate,” tweeted Adam Rippon, a figure skater who objected to Pence leading the 2018 Olympic delegation because of Pence’s record on LGBTQ issues.
Harris has repeatedly pushed back on such comments. When Doug Hickey, a Silicon Valley executive, told Harris during a fundraiser, “I sincerely feel sorry for Mike on this one.”
“Mike Pence debates really well, so lower the expectations,” Harris retorted.
John Gregg, an Indiana Democrat who went to law school with Pence and squared off against him in the state’s 2012 gubernatorial race, said people underrate the vice president’s skills.
“You know, he’s easy to poke fun at. A lot of people do because he’s conservative – or different things he’s said,” Gregg said. “But they underestimate Mike. He’s a very good debater.”
The years Pence spent as a radio talk show host helped make him the “king of sound bites,” which he combines with a message focus that Gregg said makes him “the most disciplined candidate I’ve ever run into.” That allowed Pence to defy expectations in 2016.
“I think you’d have to admit, Mike Pence got the best in that debate,” Gregg said of the Pence-Kaine debate.
Though that contest was not as fractious as last month’s presidential debate, Pence and Kaine frequently interrupted each other. The moderator admonished the candidates that the viewers couldn’t understand either one when they talked over each other.
Pence won points for appearing more even-tempered and in control – as well as deftly deflecting Kaine’s attacks on Trump as he employed the Reaganesque mannerisms of a little smile followed by a tilt and shake of his head in response to Kaine’s criticisms.
“The biggest takeaway I had from that debate four years ago was the skill with which Pence could just kind of shake off almost anything that Donald Trump had done or said,” Steel, the Republican strategist, said.
Prosecuting the case
Kaine said Harris can use her prosecutorial background to try to indict the Trump administration for the deaths from COVID-19, millions of lost jobs, social unrest and sky-high deficits.
“A prosecutor will have evidence to argue in this debate, and that’s kind of different than 2016 when it was more about promises about what we’ll do rather than in fact what has the record been of the administration,” Kaine wrote in an email to USA TODAY.
Harris said her biggest challenge will be handling “what is very likely to be a series of untruths.”
“I don’t necessarily want to be the fact checker,” Harris told Hillary Clinton during an episode of Clinton’s podcast. “At the same time, you know, depending on how far he goes with whatever he does, he’s going to be accountable for what he said.”
Geraldine Ferraro, the first woman in a vice presidential debate, rebuked George H.W. Bush in 1984 for what she called his “patronizing attitude that you have to teach me about foreign policy.”
That moment was unrehearsed, said Barnett, who played Bush in Ferraro’s debate prep. It was a “very important moment in the history of women in politics,” even though Bush won the election, he said.
“She stood for every woman who’d ever been patronized,” Barnett said.
Though female candidates can still face a higher bar, Barnett said, malefemale faceoffs are also “fraught with peril for the male candidate.”
Biden was deliberately restrained when he debated GOP presidential nominee Sarah Palin in 2008, according to Goldstein, the vice presidential scholar. “The concern was that Palin was a lightweight, and he didn’t want to appear to be a bully,” he said.
“But I think that given the challenges they’ve had with women voters and the way that Trump has treated women politicians on occasions,” Goldstein said, “I think Pence has to be careful not to appear condescending or patronizing or engaged in any behavior that would appropriately be viewed as sexist.”
Ralph Reed, a longtime friend of Pence and chairman of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, said Pence will be walking a tightrope on tone.
Still, he said, “It’s important to respect one’s opponent enough to challenge them.” And showing respect doesn’t mean taking a dive – especially, Reed said, because Harris is “not at all afraid to throw a punch.”
“I think the vice president will be a perfect gentleman – and he’ll be tough as nails,” Reed said.