My wife and I sat up last night to watch the vice-presidential debate. You can read coverage of it all over the place, but I thought I’d share a few of my impressions of it.
- Kamala Harris is the real deal. She was in control, informed, firm, and yet appeared to have an “inner joy” that came through.
- Mike Pence sounds the same when he is lying and when he is not. A good skill to have, I suppose. And he lied a lot, such as “President Trump has always put the health of the American people first.”
- The moderator was really bad. She let Pence run over his time repeatedly, and she didn’t force either candidate to answer the questions.
- On the other hand, the questions — which were written by her — were excellent. It’s a shame they weren’t answered.
- Pence talked over both women constantly, and did quite a bit of “mansplaining” as well. Also interrupted both women a lot. Probably lost even more votes from women as a result.
- In response, Harris said “I’m speaking,” which is probably the take-away line from the evening.
- Finally, you will hear much discussion today of “the fly.” They’re referring to the fly that landed on Pence’s hair and stayed there for about two minutes. Bill Kristol said that Harris won the debate, and the fly came in second.
So, there you have it. I had a hard time watching it, primarily because of Pence’s answers, which indicated he’s been living in an alternate universe for the last four years.
It won’t move the needle in the overall race, I don’t think. But it certainly made me feel even better about Kamala Harris. I was glad Biden picked her, and I’m more glad now.