Mike Pence maintained a righteous disdain, shot through with a solid vein of indignation, right till the bitter end of the vice presidential debate. He sighed, he chuckled, he gave a world-class eye roll, and more than once tried to squeeze in a Reagan-esque “there you go again.” For the most part, he went through the debate without seeming to get ruffled.
A task that was made much, much easier because he simply discarded that Trump guy.
“I’m happy to defend [Trump],” Pence said.
But Pence rarely actually defended Trump. Instead, he dodged or outright denied his running mate’s statements.
While Pence claimed more than once he was happy to be on the ticket with Donald Trump, it appeared that he’s never actually met the man, because the positions Pence put forward often had little to do with anything Trump has said or anything Trump has announced. It was if Mike Pence had conjured up an imaginary running mate, a six-foot tall conservative rabbit named Harvey Reagan, who held hard-right conservative positions but not so much of Trump’s alt-right WTF’ery.
Pence was all in with Harvey, but as for Donald Trump ...
Repeatedly over the course of Tuesday’s debate, Mr. Kaine exclaimed that he could not believe Mr. Pence could defend Mr. Trump’s behavior and record. In a way, Mr. Kaine was right — a polished Mr. Pence largely did not.
Election Day is fast approaching, and we need all hands on deck. With the PCCC and Daily Kos, no matter where you live, you can call key voters in districts where progressive Democrats are in tight races. Click here to get started.
After multiple attempts to get Mike Pence to defend some Trump position, any Trump position, Tim Kaine began rubbing Pence’s nose in his refusal to stand up for his supposed partner. But even that wasn’t enough to make Pence actually come out in support of anything the Donald had said or done.
Instead, Pence spent a great portion of his time denying Trump ever opened his mouth.
When Kaine challenged Pence to defend Trump’s comment that more nations should get nuclear weapons, Pence said “he never said that.” But Trump did. ...
When Kaine said that Trump had said women should be punished for abortion, Pence said, “Donald Trump and I would never support legislation that punished women who made the heartbreaking choice to end a pregnancy.” But Trump did say that women who have abortions should be punished. …
When Kaine said that Trump recently claimed Putin was not going into Ukraine, Pence denied it.
Harvey Reagan would never support any of those things. Harvey is dead set on keeping the nuclear club as small as possible. Harvey thinks Vladimir Putin is “small and bullying.” Harvey has a rock-solid consistency when it comes to the issue of abortion.
The problem for Mike Pence? He’s not on a ticket with Harvey.
The problem for Donald Trump? He’s running with Mike Pence, whose entire goal at the debate seemed to be protecting Mike Pence and his next running mate, rather than the one he has today.
… while the debate was a proxy battle for the top of the ticket, Pence managed to both make it about his own competence and political skill—rather than Donald Trump’s many flaws.
Think Pence 2020, rather than Trump-Pence 2016.
For anyone who dropped into the debate with zero contact with American politics and zero knowledge of the issues, it might have looked as if Mike Pence “won” the debate. After all, he was the one who kept his cool. But it’s easy to keep your cool if you’re not interested in keeping anything else. Especially not Donald Trump.
The job of the vice presidential candidate is to protect the ticket. On that score, Tim Kaine not only won big, he was the only person playing.