Observations on the VEEP Debate

Here are some observations on last night’s vice presidential debate.

Nobody cares. People don’t vote for vice president and, anyway, a snap poll taken by CNN immediately afterwords called it a draw, which is what it felt like to me.

But it was nice. It was nice to see two guys disagreeing agreeably. Despite J.D. Vance’s defense of Trump (what else could he do?), he was the un-Trump. He acknowledged common ground with Tim Walz and avoided personal attacks. He didn’t shout or say crazy stuff. He was coherent. Walz did the same with an overlay of what comes off as genuine folksiness. The debate reminded us of what politics once was and could be again.

Vance won on style, Walz was the regular guy. Vance spoke in polished and complete sentences. Walz exhaled sentence fragments. Vance sounded smarter. Walz sounded real.

Vance did himself a lot of good. His job was to undo the “cat lady” image he built for himself and he did that extraordinarily well. He came off as a nice guy. But, as David Axelrod observed in the post debate chatter, there are two J.D. Vances — the mean-spirited Trumpist troll and the smooth operator we saw last night.

But in the end this won’t have any impact on which of their bosses gets elected in November. Which is why this edition of YSDA is as brief as it is.