J.D. Tuccille: Swaggering Vance pummels sweaty ‘knucklehead’ Walz

To illustrate the contrast between the recent presidential debate and this week’s vice-presidential match, I’ll say that I dread either Donald Trump or Kamala Harris taking office as president, but I fear the policies of veep hopefuls J.D. Vance and Tim Walz. At the top of both party’s tickets are individuals of uncertain competence and shaky basic decency, while their sidekicks come off as the designated adults, ready to step in if the winning presidential candidate falters, and more than excited to implement their chosen programs, God help us. That said, Vance had a much better night than Walz.

From the very beginning, J.D. Vance gave us a glimpse of what Trump might be like minus a personality disorder and with focus. He looked cool and collected, with his arguments organized in his head. He was also able to quickly pivot to address  —  or dodge (this is politics, after all)  —  the CBS moderators’ questions.

By contrast, Walz appeared like he was sweat-soaking his notes into illegibility as he tried to remember which part of the previous night’s memorized cram session he should spit out. He eventually regained some of his footing, though he generally seemed nervous and unprepared.

“The vibe of this debate is adult confronting the coach who molested him,” quipped podcaster and writer Bridget Phetasy, who isn’t known for being merciful.

The Democrat’s discomfort probably came to a head when he was asked to explain why he long claimed to have been in Hong Kong in 1989, with front-row seats to the Tiananmen Square massacre, when news reports and photographic evidence showed he was at home in Nebraska. Much hemming, hawing and references to a small-town upbringing ensued, which was painful to watch. The closest he came to admitting he lied was conceding, “I’m a knucklehead at times” and that he “misspoke.”

Vance performed a few evasive dances of his own, particularly about his past harsh criticism of current running mate Donald Trump. After all, he said in 2016 that he vacillated between considering Trump “a cynical asshole like Nixon” or “America’s Hitler.” Asked to explain the remarkable shift in his opinion of the once and, perhaps, future president, Vance explained “I was wrong about Donald Trump.” That might or might not be true, but it came off better than Vance’s caught-lying flop sweat.

That said, Vance and Walz were cordial to each other. They even assumed good intentions on each other’s part while acknowledging policy differences. For the first time in years, national candidates gave the impression that no clean-up crew would be needed if they were left together in a room with a knife.

That’s not to say the room they should be left in is the Oval Office. While Vance and Walz positively stood out by comparison to the tops of their tickets, they were both bad on many policies. They disagreed over the details of addressing economic and social concerns, but both believe the government should play a greater role in guiding the economy and the lives of Americans.

I’ve written before that Vance and Walz are the competent authoritarians on their respective tickets. Vance embraces nationalist-populism and government-guided industrial policy by which the state nudges or forces businesses in its preferred directions rather than allowing for free markets. He also wants officialdom to invade people’s bedrooms with pornography bans and has advocated strict abortion bans, though he’s since adopted a preference for federalism with state-level policies on the issue.

Walz is a progressive with all the government-directed control-freakery that entails these days. He defended a large, activist government during the debate, and enacted exactly that as governor of Minnesota, when he was called out as a COVID-19 tyrant and earned a failing grade on fiscal policy from the Cato Institute. He openly soft-sells socialism.

Telling moments came during the debate when Vance laid in —  quite correctly — to the Biden-Harris administration for its censorship of alleged “misinformation” and inconvenient facts on social media. He was absolutely right that the federal government overstepped its boundaries, violating free speech rights, and that officials are enthusiastic to further muzzle critics.

While the charges are true, this should have opened Vance up to a counterattack from Walz. Vance wants to “seize the assets” of non-profit organizations that support policies he opposes, which is itself censorious. But Walz missed the opportunity — probably because he falsely claims  “there’s no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech” and is no First Amendment absolutist himself.

As with several moments in the debate, it was a glimpse that both candidates understand the concept of liberty, but view it with suspicion. The impression left was of two intelligent, affable men who want their allies to be free to act, but aren’t so sure about everybody else.

The conventional wisdom is that vice presidential candidates don’t make much of a difference in presidential races. But Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are known and still not widely popular figures. Gallup has Trump’s favorability at 46 percent and Harris’s at 44 percent. Harris is slightly ahead in averages of national polls, but because of the Electoral College, the numbers in battleground states make the race a toss-up. That means the vice-presidential candidate could make a bigger difference this year than is usually the case, just by moving public sentiment a smidgen.

Walz and Vance went into the debate with middling support from the public, just shy of 40 per cent viewing each of them as poor choices for their respective tickets, while 46 per cent rate Walz as either an “excellent” or “pretty good” choice, versus 41 per cent for Vance, according to Gallup. That means they had a lot of room to improve their public images with their generally polite performances.

While Vance did better than Walz at maintaining his composure and presenting himself as collected on stage, post-debate polls give him only a small edge in terms of who selected groups of watchers think won — probably because nobody had a disastrous evening. Both improved their favorability ratings, though we’ll have to wait to see if support shifts among the general public.

In fact, the only clear losers were CBS’s Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan, who continued the unfortunate tradition of moderators thinking they’re debate participants. Replacing them with a timer and questions flashed on a screen by a computer program should be seriously considered in the future.

But network debate moderators aren’t on the ballot this year, that’s reserved for political candidates locked in a close race. This vice-presidential debate may help decide who ultimately prevails.

National Post