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The VP Debate

PhDeac said:
David Gergen had a good take. Kaine was over prepared. You could see it from the first question. He felt he had to attack and get all his points in.

Pence won. But did he win the war...within his own ticket?

http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/10/5/13170838/pence-trump-unhappy

Reports suggest Donald Trump is unhappy at Mike Pence for winning the VP debate
How will Donald Trump react to Mike Pence upstaging him?
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Trump prizes scorched earth attack dog blood sport and Pence didn't deliver that. Kaine did and Trump would have preferred that performance, even if it didn't move the needle in needed swing states. Trump would have preferred Christie, but his kids vetoed him. Given the Bridgegate trial, looks good in hindsight. Newt also would have been a better attack dog, but six marriages on a ticket is at least 3 too many. Rudy is deranged and hurting Trump, but Trump loves the bare knuckled carnage. HRC is Dean going 4 corners, but Trump is K who wants a hapless walk on goon to deliver hard fouls.

Clinton campaign wanted PA and VA to be their firewall. Kaine could deliver VA and as an added bonus, a Spanish speaker would be useful in FL, CO, NV, and longshot AZ. Race broke differently than expected and college suburban Whites are way more important than Latinos for HRC. Instructions were for Kaine to deliver five hard fouls on Trump.

Pence was brought on to calm down Cruz's social conservatives and avoid a bloody floor fight. Pence played directly to IA and UT last night, which won't get Trump above 270, but help Pence in 2020. Trump's an idiot if he's upset about Pence's relatively (compared to Trump and Kaine) solid performance, but he's justifiably pissed that Pence wasn't an aggressive attack dog and played to the wrong crowd/states.

Mitt's polling was terrible in 2012 and he, Ryan, and Rove looked like idiots on election night. Conway's much better and she's laid out a reasonable path: FL, PA, OH, and NC with IA as a back up, pick off suburban women, and skim urban minorities. Pointless if neither Trump (gets sidetracked by the base at partisan rallies, easily baited) or Pence (plays too much to social conservatives for 2020) can't or won't execute the strategy.

Trump's internal polling must be pretty bad in AZ, otherwise there's no reason for Trump to be there. Needs to camp in five states. Pence has checked out already. Conway can write her own 2020 ticket with her chosen social conservative, but at some point she'll stop playing for 270+ and start trying to avoid HRC getting to 332 (Obama 2012 par). Ongoing GOP civil war will already be bloody enough as it is, but much worse if a shitty candidate like HRC exceeds Obama 2012. Not improbable if Trump tanks the last two debates.

Cruz and Conway are way smarter than Pence and Huckabee, but all are social conservative true believers who are unable or unwilling to concede their social policies became extinct between 2012 and now. Unless their 2020 nominee adopts Weld's social policies, they'll end up with 24 years of hated Clintons and Obama and have six youngish Justices to show for it.
 
ChrisL68 said:
LOL. Pence did a good job by throwing Trump under the bus. Kaine defended the top of the ticket and their policies. Pence pretty much went out on his own.

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This.

Kaine does need a better serious face, and he needs to know when to use it. He interrupted too many times.
 
Didn't watch, because this debate was basically conventional Republican vs. conventional Democrat and is not going to change any voter's minds. Reading through the various recaps this AM, I came across this analysis from The Economist which I think is dead on:

But the debate also revealed something that will matter long after this election: America’s two parties struggle to agree even on a common set of facts about the state of the nation. Squabbling about whether the economy under Mr Obama has been a disaster or a stirring success, Mr Pence retorted that because voters in mostly white, working-class rust-belt cities are flocking to Mr Trump’s populist banner, that is what counts. Or as he put it: “Honestly, Senator, you can roll out the numbers and the sunny side, but I got to tell you, people in Scranton know different. People in Fort Wayne, Indiana, know different.”
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http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2016/10/kaine-pence-experiment(login required)

I think right after the conventions I posted that whether you break Trump or Clinton basically comes down to which set of "facts" you believe. Do you buy into the Trumpian "facts" that the country is going down the tubes, is beset by existential dangers, and only Trump can save it? Or do you buy into the Clintonian "facts" that everything is pretty good actually, the only thing we have to fear is fear itself, and the last thing we need is to hand the country over to a lunatic like Trump? Sitting hereon October 5, it looks like the cap on people who believe Trump's view of reality is about 40-43%. We'll see if he can convince more people to take his view in the next 4 weeks...
 
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Trump needs to study how Pence performed. If Trump can do on Sunday night what Pence did last night, he will be the next president of the US. I don't think Trump has the ability to do that, but that is all it would take.

People do not want to vote for Hillary, but so far Trump has not been a reasonable alternative.

If Trump's next debate performance is similar to his last, the race is over.
 
Yeah, I guess is if Trump could get away with not defending his own words and actions, and morph into the candidate that Pence talked about, than he might do OK in a debate.

You all have set the bar so low that you believe Trump would win just by acting calm and not ranting about Rosie O'Donnell.

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This is the same candidate who wants to cut taxes by trillions of dollars, stifle trade, spend 30+ billion deporting millions of people and building a border wall, and then "rebuild" the military? Yet Bernie was crazy for proposing free college?

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myDeaconmyhand said:
Yeah, I guess is if Trump could get away with not defending his own words and actions, and morph into the candidate that Pence talked about, than he might do OK in a debate.

You all have set the bar so low that you believe Trump would win just by acting calm and not ranting about Rosie O'Donnell.

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That might be where the bar is. That is probably still too high for Trump. The dislike for Hillary is strong, but the other option has to meet some minimum standard.
 
It's hard to believe that Kaine rehearsed that strategy of constantly interrupting. "Hey focus group, what do you think about a candidate constantly interrupting the other one?" - "yay, we love it, he was great! USA! USA! USA!"

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myDeaconmyhand said:
It's hard to believe that Kaine rehearsed that strategy of constantly interrupting. "Hey focus group, what do you think about a candidate constantly interrupting the other one?".

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I think he really went against his nature. He wanted to come across as the aggressor. He reminded me of a Chihuahua that would not shut up. Pence had a great demeanor. He was able to ignore most of Kaine's attack because they were so hyperbolic. There is plenty to attack Trump on without needing to resort to exaggerations. The worst was when he said that Trump did not like the troops because he had not paid taxes as a result of losing 900 million dollars in 1995. I half expected to hear him say "but don't let the facts get in the way".
 
Right. He felt he needed to attack and get his points out. That is a traditional VP strategy but the wrong one here. Kaine needed to be the likeable one on the ticket. He failed.
 
PhDeac said:
David Gergen had a good take. Kaine was over prepared.
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I thought we dispensed with this idea after the first debate. It's not a thing to be overprepared when the thing you're preparing for is proving you should be in the Oval Office.
 
I don't think you get what Gergen was saying. Kaine was trying to push through a script rather than have an organized conversation. He was hopped up on attack lines.
 
I didn't see the first 20 or so minutes when kaine supposedly had his worst performance but I thought he settled down fine. He mostly attacked Trump using Trump's own words which Pence couldn't defend without straight-out lying. I guess when you're trying to rationalize how Trump can win this election this is a good as place to be as any

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myDeaconmyhand said:
This is the same candidate who wants to cut taxes by trillions of dollars, stifle trade, spend 30+ billion deporting millions of people and building a border wall, and then "rebuild" the military? Yet Bernie was crazy for proposing free college?

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Did you take lessons from Kaine last night in hyperbole?
 
DG3 said:
Did you take lessons from Kaine last night in hyperbole?
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again those are some of trump's main talking points this campaign. I know Republicans are desperate to try to recast this as hyperbolic

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Found it hilarious how often Kaine tried to bring up tax returns. Blah blah blah North Korea, but WHY WON'T HE RELEASE HIS TAX RETURNS??

Also, really liked Pence's line about "Do you not take all of the deductions that are afforded to you?" Thought he should have stated it a little more firmly/actually gotten an answer. If anyone in the U.S. thinks that a single one of these politicians are not using the tax code 100% to their advantage, they are kidding themselves.
 
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