After last week's debate between Donald Tump and Joe Biden, the bar for tonights performance was pretty low. What looked more like a session of couples therapy, was in-fact two of our leaders competing for the highest position in the land.
Tonight's debate featured US state senator Kamala Harris and Vice President Mike Pence. With less whining and interrupting, the debate today was much more civil. There was still some interrupting and going overtime on their responses, but overall, the candidates were much better behaved. They addressed various issues including climate change, abortion, tax cuts, relations with China, the Corona Virus and some others.
Immediately following the debate, Joe Biden strikes against Pence on twitter, posting a picture of him holding a fly swatter and saying "Pitch in $5 to help this campaign fly joe.link/3nvsFwL.
The debate ended with a question by a local 5th grader, who asked about political division and the leaders who don't get along well with each other. I thought this was a very insightful question, but unfortunately, the responses were similar to the rest in the debate. Mike Pence took the opportunity to avoid responding the the question once again, and go tangent to the curve to talk about something pretty random. Overall, it was an interesting debate to watch, with a fun, 6 legged guest. Speculation is that the fly will soon appear in an SNL skit and be invited onto the Ellen Show.
Source 1: CNN
Source 2: New York Post
Source 3: Washington Post
Source 5: Twitter
5 comments:
I have to commend Joe Biden's publicity team (or whoever is in charge of https://store.joebiden.com/), because the "Truth over Flies Swatter" was an extremely creative marketing strategy. Not only is the humor and quick thinking of his team helping boost his sales (which donate to the Biden Victory Fund), but also increasing his audience range. On a more serious note, however, I find it unreasonable that Pence attacked Harris and Biden for dodging a question about "wanting to pack the Court," when most of his answers barely addressed the question, and when he also didn't comment on whether or not the transfer of power will be peaceful if Trump doesn't win. One of the other many frustrating actions he took was not wearing his mask after the debate, but at this point after hearing his responses, I can't say I'm surprised.
After a the disastrous and unproductive presidential debate, the vice president debate was an extreme improvement. Interestingly, even though there was much more policy discussion, the fly apparently took most people's attention. While both candidates frequently pivoted away from the moderator's questions, Harris and Pence had a relatively civil and constructive debate. Pence responded to a climate change question by asserting that water and air quality was improving, while criticizing environmental restrictions for costing jobs. By touting conservationism and inserting the issue of fracking while ignoring emissions, Pence modified the question, putting Harris in the position of responding to his claims instead of the central issue of climate change. This debate strategy was used throughout the night, and cost us the more comprehensive look at policy we could have had.
The humor of the fly incident aside, I agree with Josh in that this debate was significantly more productive than the presidential debate. However, the evasiveness was frustrating; Pence neglected to respond to how his administration would accommodate pre-existing conditions if they succeed in overturning the Affordable Care Act as well as what nature of abortion standards he would implement in the case Roe v. Wade was overturned, simply stating he was pro-life. I do think that he essentially accomplished what he set out to do, which was to crystallize the stance of his administration, and I find that the fact that he wouldn’t even consider the possibility of losing very concerning, further foreshadowing and pretty much confirming (the growing expectation of) unrest during the interregnum period.
I completely agree with Josh and Niyati that the debate was a step forward/improvement from the Presidential debate. There was much less interrupting during this VP debate, and points actually came across because they were more respectful towards each other. However, I think that the moderator could've done a better job at putting her foot down, as she continued to try to stop Pence from speaking overtime but he constantly ignored her & even refused to move on to a new topic when she had respectfully asked to do so. Additionally, it was incredibly frustrating to watch Pence neglect to answer almost all of the questions; he seemed to steer away from answering about his administration's flaws, and instead redirect towards attacking the Biden administration. He refused to admit that climate change was a threat, dodged questions about how people at "superspreader" White House events were not wearing masks, and provided no detail to how he would effectively replace the Affordable Care Act. I'm also interested to see what will happen with the October 15 debate, as Trump has just stated that he sees a virtual debate as a waste of time. The secrecy & lack of empathy in the Trump administration shown through his presidency, the debates, & his case with the coronavirus is worrisome. Hopefully, both the Trump & Biden administration will address such issues with detail in further debates.
Pence kept using the phrase “You are entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts” as defense to many of Senator Harris’s attacks. This is incredibly ironic, as his administration (Trump’s) is known for spreading misinformation and straight up lying. In fact, according to many fact checkers after the debate, Pence spread more misinformation than Senator Harris did during the debate. In my opinion, Pence played the “politician” card better: he thanked everybody in the beginning of the debate while Senator Harris did not and solely answered the 5th grader’s questions in the time he was given for that question while Senator Harris went on to describe reasons to vote for Biden (this was the only questions that he actually answered dead on). While this isn’t really important, it is definitely something that sticks with a certain population of voters. Something to think about is how Senator Harris’s race and gender placed limits on how she could act (theoretically, these factors shouldn’t play a role, but in reality, they unfortunately do). Another thing to think about is how the face of the repulican party rested on Pence’s shoulders for this debate after Trump’s disastrous performance. As of right now, the second debate is cancelled, but I don’t we would’ve gained much from it anyway.
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