close
close

Vance crushes Walz; The debate was over in the first minute.

Posted on by Vaseline
Vance crushes Walz; The debate was over in the first minute.

New York – “I think we now know the story that Walz was nervous and that being a bad debater wasn’t an expectation-lowering exercise – it was a leak,” said a top Republican as he left the just-concluded vice presidential debate between Governor Tim . Walz and Sen. J.D. Vance late Tuesday night. When the debate started at 9 p.m., it was clear from the first moments that Walz was exactly what the stories said: nervous and a poor debater. It was also clear that JD Vance would win the debate decisively.

Chris LaCivita, the Trump campaign co-manager said he could see what was happening almost immediately. When I asked what the key moment of the debate was, LaCivita quickly responded: “The first 20 seconds.” Why was that? “Because the first question out of the gate is about leadership on the world stage, everything that’s going on in the Middle East, and Tim Walz comes on stage and he’s all upset. He doesn’t project the image of the kind of leadership you want in the White House. So at that point the whole thing was framed.

Yes, that happened. Walz’s shaky start put a damper on Democrats, and even when he improved, which he did, Walz still wasn’t as good as Vance. The Republican grilled Walz on world crises, on the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, on immigration, and fought him to at least end gun violence.

Then there were the moments when Walz inexplicably hit himself. When co-moderator Margaret Brennan asked about Walz’s oft-repeated story about being in Hong Kong during the 1989 Tiananmen Square uprising, when he was actually in Nebraska, Walz launched into a long song and dance about the fact that he came from a small town. And then he said, “I haven’t been perfect, and sometimes I’m an idiot.” And then he said he tends to talk too much. “I will talk a lot. I will get caught up in the rhetoric,” Walz said. At that point, he made an excellent case that he is too emotional to be a heartbeat away from the presidency. And then, finally, when Brennan pressed him, he admitted he “made a mistake” about Hong Kong. Why didn’t he just do that to begin with?

Brennan then turned to Vance for his own tough question, which related to all the harsh criticism Vance leveled at Donald Trump in 2016. Now he is Trump’s running mate; Is he just telling the former president what he wants to hear? It was a question Vance knew well. I recently spoke with a veteran of Vance’s 2022 Senate race who noted that Vance held more than 75 town halls during that campaign, and someone asked the question every time, “You beat Trump, but now you like him.” . Vance has had a lot of practice answering it. And on this occasion, unlike Walz, he began with, “I was wrong…” Vance said he criticized Trump and then changed his mind because 1) he believed some negative and inaccurate media reports about Trump during the 2016 campaign, and 2 ) “Donald Trump delivered rising wages and rising take-home pay for the American people, an economy that worked for normal Americans.”

Vance addressed the question designed to make him uncomfortable much better than Walz did. And when the discussion turned to economics, Vance analyzed Walz’s position in a way that Walz never could. “Honestly, Tim, I think you have a tough job here, playing mole,” Vance said. “You have to pretend that Donald Trump has not ensured rising net wages, which of course he has. You have to pretend that Donald Trump didn’t lower inflation, which of course he did. And then at the same time you have to defend Kamala Harris’ atrocious economic record, which has made gas, groceries and housing unaffordable for American citizens.” Vance talked about some of his family’s struggles paying the bills and concluded, “We can do so much better. For all of you watching, we can get back to an America that is affordable again. We just need to return to common sense economic principles.”

By then, Walz’s followers, in the world of politics and journalism, were almost beside themselves. America’s Coach choked the game. Just over an hour later, the New Yorker’s Susan Glasser tweeted, “Where’s the Tim Walz who went viral after ‘weird’ Republicans? So far, I have not appeared on the debate stage tonight.” To which the Washington Post’s Karen Tumulty responded, “This isn’t his best setting.”

Indeed it was not. “Vance is going home tonight with Walz’s wallet,” tweeted David Frum of The Atlantic. “Vance didn’t even have to take it away. Walz just handed it over…’

Trump’s side knew it. After the debate, Donald Trump Jr., who is close to Vance, called the evening “absolutely incredible.” It was just a masterclass performance…just a smash.” Representative Byron Donalds called Vance “dominant.” Senior advisor Jason Miller said Vance “revealed tonight that Tim Walz and Kamala Harris are all slogans – there is no substance to them whatsoever.”

So the die was cast. But then, after more than 90 minutes of debate, came the moment Democrats were waiting for, the moment they imagined Walz would turn the tables on Vance and prove the Republican was ineligible for high office. Co-moderator Norah O’Donnell turned the conversation to the “state of democracy” and asked Vance about his statement that he “would not have certified the 2020 presidential election.” Would Vance and Trump also try to challenge the next one?

Vance took some time to answer before Walz asked Vance about 2020 in a much more direct manner. Trump “still says he didn’t lose the election,” Walz told Vance. “I would just ask that: Did he lose the 2020 election?” Vance dodged the question. “Tim, I’m focused on the future,” he said before trying to change the subject. “That’s damned,” Walz said. “That’s a damn non-answer.”

Democrats cheered from coast to coast. Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, who came to the Spin Room debate to support Walz, told reporters: “Out of all the 90 minutes, one minute really mattered, and that was when JD Vance actually defended Donald Trump. which is almost impossible for most Americans to believe, by denying that Joe Biden actually won that election. So where do we go if they don’t believe in our democracy?”

The Democratic political world collectively said it was time for Walz to speak up. The MSNBC crew was thrilled. They just hoped people would still watch this late at night.

And then there was Chris LaCivita. When I asked him to respond to what Klobuchar had said, he wasn’t concerned at all. “I think if you vote on what happened in 2020, you’ve already chosen a side,” he explained. Democrats have placed great emphasis on 2020 and “protecting democracy,” but “they’re not talking about the issues that matter to the American people.”

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINATOR

“If you poll or watch January 6, no one talks about it,” LaCivita continued. ‘They’re the only ones talking about it. It’s no problem. It will be a big problem for the hardcore registered Democrats who are going to vote for Kamala anyway, but that is not what the campaign is about: speaking out and advocating for that small group of people who will actually decide the election.” I said he seemed confident that Vance’s 2020 answer wouldn’t lose any votes. “Zero, none,” he said.

If LaCivita is right, Then it turned out that even Walz’s Big Moment wasn’t that big, as much as it might have excited the talking heads at MSNBC. Considering that the debate lasted over an hour and a half, it might not have been seen by that many people. And even if it had, it seems unlikely that it would have outweighed the long debate that preceded it, with Vance outperforming Walz on almost every measure. So maybe LaCivita’s theory that Vance’s victory was clear in the first 20 seconds is correct. “We just looked at his expressions and you could tell he felt it,” LaCivita said of Vance. “He just knew how it would go.”

Related Posts