Well, I don’t think that was a knockout for either candidate, but the fly definitely wins.
First of all, I would love to teach all of the candidates to answer the question first and then pivot to their talking points.
Even Kamala.
That’s why so many Americans don’t trust politicians. Because they don’t hear them being direct often enough.
The kind of answer I liked is when Kamala said straight out that she would take a vaccine approved by scientists, but not one recommended by Donald Drumpf.
That’s all she had to say.
Commentators will probably say that it was pretty even, and that Pence held his own, and they’ll mention that their side once again talked over our side incessantly (but this time more politely) and how that mirrors what happens to women in the boardroom.
And they’ll talk about how this moderator didn’t have much more luck containing Pence than Chris Wallace had containing Drumpf.
But it’s also clear that Pence went to the Donald J. Drumpf School of Lying, and (of course) these debates aren’t fact-checked in real time. So, it will have to be after the debate before the false equivalence of the lies on their side are found to overwhelm the exaggerations on our side.
I was amazed that Pence wheeled out the “you’re entitled to your own opinions but not your own facts” that (noted Democrat) Senator Daniel Moynihan made famous, given that this is the “alternative facts” administration.
But that’s the thing about lying in the Drumpf era: go big or go home!
In the end, you just have got to love that fly.
Oh man are we going to get mileage out of that little critter.
Let’s hope the swing voter was watching! As to the fisticuffs in the first one, maybe each candidate should be allowed a fixed number of interruptions. Clips from the contest showed both being rude, but the full thing showed Biden being more measured, I think. Trouble is, soundbites count these days which I think was Trump’s tactic.