BTRTN V.P. Debate Analysis: A Slick Vance Spins Trump's Presidency, But Walz Saves His Best Punch for Last

Born To Run The Numbers provides its analysis of last night's Vice Presidential debate:

https://borntorunthenumbers.com/2024/10/02/btrtn-v-p-debate-analysis-a-slick-vance-spins-trumps-presidency-but-walz-saves-his-best-punch-for-last/

Excerpts: "Too bad this wasn’t the presidential debate. J.D. Vance was far better at articulating and defending Trump policies than Trump himself, albeit with the help of some breathtaking revisionist history. J.D. Vance went into last night’s debate with little room for him to move but upward, and the formal rhetorical structure of a debate was uniquely suited to Vance’s narrow suit of strengths. Vance did well. ...He anticipated the tough questions that he would get about his running mate, and he knew exactly how he would handle each one. Unfortunately, his go-to plan for dealing with those tough questions involved a great deal of lying, which he did with a most alarming casual insouciance...
"As the debate wore on, Vance’s flights of hyperbole in authoring real-time revisionist history soared and broke the surly bonds of reality… and Walz finally began to counter-punch effectively...
"But at 10:35, Walz finally lowered the boom on Vance...he asked him point blank whether he agreed with Trump’s long-standing denial of the election outcome... It was as if a prize fighter who was ahead on points was suddenly knocked to the mat in the fifteenth round. Vance had been cruising to a likely win, and suddenly Walz smacked him hard. It's a good bet that this will be the viral moment most often shared on social media in the coming days. For all Vance had done to repackage himself as a reasonable man, his stammering, evasive “non-answer” presented him as a dangerous “election denier,” or simply as Donald Trump’s ever faithful poodle...
"For all the sound and fury, let’s be real: four weeks ago, Kamala Harris soundly crushed Donald Trump in the Presidential debate, and the general conclusion was that it had not the slightest impact on polling. Last night’s debate is best characterized a draw in the far less consequential battle of V.P. candidates, so it is hard to imagine the debate having any real impact on the race..."