politics

I feel like there's a history of these VP debates being pretentiously "more civil" than the main event, because the stakes are lower, etc. So there was that, here, in vance and walz being so nice and agreeing with each other.

But this shit was boring crazy. Vance just lied and was unable to hold Walz to account.

Conclusion: Tim Walz is just too nice a guy to say what needs to be said.

To Vance's credit, he's doing a monumental amount of damage control and sanewashing for Donald Trump and is doing a decent job at it. Yes Vance is lying through his teeth with each answer but he is markedly better at keeping his cool compared to the former Narcissist-in-Chief against VP Harris. It's a position Walz wouldn't envy. So overall I think this is within the best range of events Vance could expect.

They both did well at acknowledging each other and keeping this like a somewhat normal debate, can you imagine. That said, if any viewer can hold a thought without focusing solely on whatever deflection each candidate is doing, Walz is giving better answers, and Vance is putting way more false equivalencies in.

Walz is doing very well with his answers, he's not as calculated and rehearsed as Harris, and you know having a heart makes you mess up more than the recently changed telephone options menu, but he is doing a fantastically better job at connecting with voters than Vance did. Walz's jabs are quick and easily missed ("Wharton") but even with apolitical people, if they understand Walz's language then they'll get when he is jabbing at Vance.

Obviously I was hoping Vance would fold up into a chair and was disappointed for that to not happen. More than that though is that I'm crossing my fingers the news cycle doesn't begin pretending it's a normal election cycle just because the VP candidates could actually look each other in the eye for a night. Idk, give it 48hours and Trump will be starved enough of attention to break the spell and make people glare at him again in disgust.

Minor Vance win overall since he had lower expectations going in and Walz got that one unfortunate extremely clippable misspeak. Vance refusing to admit Trump lost in 2020 and his Springfield...thing though cost him any chance of a rout, which is basically required for a VP debate to have significant upballot effects. Still the Republicans probably appreciate getting Vance above Sarah Parin and Aaron Burr and getting the media distracted for another day or two.

Listening to these idiotic "uncommitted voters" in the focus group are the absolute worse. It's a collection of people that love the attention of being an indecisive moron.

Every article I read speculating on the debate brought up Walz' response to the Minnesota protests but it didn't even come up unless I missed it? I was half expecting JD's closing statement to try and attack Tim on it, also half expecting it to turn into a pitch to sign up for Truth and Rumble

CNN pundits saying "Vance was obviously the better debater" and "Walz really dropped the ball and let Vance get away with too much"

PBS pundits are complaining that they were too nice to each other and agreed with each other too much. Sigh.

It just occurred to be that Vance is running for president not VP. I don't think he thinks Trump will get through his term if elected.

I did it. I opened a private tab and checked Truth Social. Trump is obsessed with Walz misspeaking on school shooters. He also screamed in all caps that he would veto a national abortion ban. Also his usual weird fixation with the moderators’ ratings in other shows, and still asserting that anyone who said he lost in 2020 is lying.

Vance: mah family, so relevant

So are we voting for Vance or Walz???

"I'm rootin' for you." What? Rooting for me to do what?

"She hasn't accomplished what she set out to do in three years" is kind of weird for the running mate of the guy who accomplished fuck all in terms of his campaign promises for four.

Electric bills are what he thinks Americans are worried about right now? Really?

Hella canned closing comments.

This has been such a tame debate that the argument my neighbors are having about one of them masturbating to much distracted me.

"from AOC to Dick Cheney to Taylor Swift."

Taylor Swift confirmed more right-wing than Cheney!1!

I will say that I worry about Vance as a candidate when he’s no longer directly tied to Trump and his madness. He’s the face of non-truth leading to fascism.