Walz was stick and stuck to his pre-programmed answers. Walz got off to a slow start, but his answers steadily better as the debate went on. I'm looking forward to Daniel Day's fact checking.

Vance got pissed when he thought the moderators fact-checked him, but he had no problem talking over them despite the fact that his time was up. His politeness/civility was only surface deep.

Correction: Vance was stick and stuck to his pre-programmed answers.

They fact checked him and were wrong and they agreed ahead of time no fact-checking. What did you expect Vance to do? Just take it? He stood up for himself and I feel he was right in doing so.
#72 | Posted by BellRinger

I thought they were stating facts, fact checking both of them. What did they say that was wrong?

Vance is just way more intelligent than anyone in either campaign. But none of you can admit it.
#79 | Posted by oneironaut

Vance is very smart, no doubt. But is he wise? Does he have a heart? He sold his soul to become Trump's VP. I wouldn't trust him to move my couch as Warren famously quipped. I wouldn't trust him with my kids, my uterus or my country. It goes without saying I wouldn't trust Trump with any of those either.

Walz was talking about meeting with the parents of children who died at Sandy Hook. He meant to say he became friends with the victims of school shooters, meaning those parents, but he was talking fast and he misspoke. I thought they both talked too fast throughout, which made it hard to follow them at times. I kept thinking, Slow down, breathe.

Perhaps.
#108 | Posted by oneironaut

No perhaps about it. The question was something like: what made you change your mind about gun safety laws?

You can't say that with authority. Otherwise why have him speak at all.
He said what he said, and everyone heard it. Trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube at this point.
#116 | Posted by oneironat

Yes, I can. It is clear from the context. Why/when did you change your position on gun safety laws? When my office was filled with the parents of kids who died at Sandy Hook. You'll see when the transcript comes out.

If that's the best gotcha you got on Walz from this debate, you got nothing.

It's not that Walz got destroyed. He didn't. It's that he didn't destroy Vance. He didn't do that either. That's what some Democrats/pundits are disappointed about. They wanted to see the equivalent of Kamala"s Harris shellacking of Trump and didn't get it.

MSNBC said in a poll after the debate 42% said Vance won, 41% said Walz won and 17% said it was a tie.

I don't think either one of them won--or lost. Vance is the better debater. That was clear before the debate, but I don't think that being the better debater was enough to give him the win because he did tell so many lies. As the debate progressed, Walz did land some punches and had some good lines, but he also missed many opportunities to correct Vance's lies.

I'll play. I've read Vance interviews, such as a couple with Ross Douthat of the NYT, one of the writers I trust, and Vance came across as reasonable and smart. Some of his views are out there, but what candidate doesn't have some?
How else do we form opinions about candidates? Interviews and voting records are all we've got. Most people form opinions from first impressions.
#181 | Posted by lee_the_agent

You can also judge people by the company they keep. Some of his ideas are more than just out there. Video of Vance at link:

Christopher Webb
@cwebbonline
Who is the REAL J.D.Vance? I don't know, and you don't either"but he's too extreme and radical to be a heartbeat away from the presidency.

Rachel Maddow just dropped a bombshell on the eve of the VP debate: Vance wants to shut down universities, seize their endowments, and "destroy all the things which conservatives don't have complete control over."

Seriously, WUT?

Oh, and he idolizes Curtis Yarvin, a guy with white nationalist pro-slavery views who believes we need to "get over our dictator phobia" and race determines societal hierarchy and intelligence. Sound familiar?

These toxic, racist ideologies belong in a dumpster fire"not in 2024.

Here's video of Yarvin:

MAGA operative endorses Trump's Project 2025 to give Trump total control over Americans' lives: "Put the president entirely in charge of the government ... [It should not be] checked and balanced"

Vance sold his soul to be Trump's VP. Most of Trump's acolytes do. That said, Vance is the one I feel more comfortable with out of all of them. He's a rock ribbed conservative in the tradition of Pence and Jeb! Take away him pandering to the pro-lifers and he seems like he'd be able to compromise reasonably. Plus, he's a Yale educated Marine. Not bad bonifides. Still won't make me vote for Trump.
#178 | Posted by lee_the_agent

I'm sorry, Lee, but Vance is not an old school Republican in the tradition of Pence and Jeb. He's just not. Vance is a new school Republican who wants to eradicate liberalism and its influence in all aspects of our culture and replace it with a form of Christian nationalism that will control every aspect of our lives from our bedrooms to our classrooms and everything inbetween.

I wonder how all the true believer pro-lifers feel about Vance saying he's not for a national abortion ban and wants to help parents have kids through fertility treatments? Do they think he has truly changed his position on these issues, or do they understand he is just saying these things out of political expediency in order to get elected?

I don't know who this Richard M. Nixon is. I got to this thread through Tom Nichols who wrote: "My evaluation of the night is pretty much what you're seeing from @dick_nixon" (emphasis mine):

Richard M. Nixon
@dick_nixon
Vance won, for what it's worth. He was calm, respectful, reasonable. He treated Walz as a decent man with whom he happens to disagree. He lied through his teeth. But it doesn't matter.

Everyone who cared to watch this has already formed an opinion of Vance. If you like him or hate him, you see through what he did. In the short term it helps Trump only in that it keeps Vance off the news for saying something stupid.

It helps Vance personally because it sets him up for '28. This is the footage they'll reach back to. Whatever the relative advantage to Trump I expect he's not pleased. Vance spoke of Trump a lot, kept him to the front, but to Trump he was soft.

"If Walz is the next Vice President he'll have my help, prayers." Trump won't like that.

Vance can do little now. This is a statement of independence from Trump, that he'll run on his own no matter what. And it is a step toward the candidate I've warned against--the Bircher with a smooth face.

Walz never lost his nerves. This is mostly due to being briefed to face a different opponent. He mostly hit his marks. But there is no excuse for the China answer. The question was a slow breaking ball at the letters.

"Like over 30 trips to an adversarial nation?"

Much like foreign exchange students themselves, eduational student cultural exchange trips were pretty popular back in the day. Nothing inherently nefarious about it.

"I wonder how all the true believer pro-lifers feel about...."
can you define "true believer pro-lifer"?
#191 | Posted by eberly

Yes, of course. True believer pro-lifers are the ones who believe life begins at conception and want to bestow citizenship of embryos at the point. That's why they are against IVF. All those unused frozen embryos are human beings whose rights must be protected from their POV. They want a national abortion band, with no exceptions.

"Just like Jeb and Pence. In the rear view mirror, they become moderate and "old school".

My impression of Jeb is that he was more moderate, but I would never call Pence a moderate. He did, however, stand up to Trump and protect the Constitution, something Vance has said he wouldn't have done. Couple that with Vance's blatant demagoguery about race, and, no, I will not be changing my opinion of him after the election. I never heard Jeb talk about race like that, and I doubt he would have. W never did.

"Just like Jeb and Pence. In the rear view mirror, they become moderate and "old school".

No, but f you won't take my word for it, maybe you will listen to Mitt Romney, who I would consider an old school Republican but not a moderate:

Why Mitt Romney once said, I don't know that I can disrespect someone more than JD Vance'

Romney's scathing words come from McKay Coppins's biography "Romney: A Reckoning," an excerpt of which ran in The Atlantic last September. The former Massachusetts governor purportedly shared his thoughts on Vance during one of several interviews with Coppins.

Years earlier, Romney had read "Hillbilly Elegy" and was so impressed that he hosted Vance at his annual Park City summit in 2018, according to Coppins. At the time, Vance was a vocal Trump critic who once called the former president "America's Hitler" and "cultural heroin." But in the lead-up to his 2022 Senate run, Vance made himself over in MAGA's image.

"How can you go over a line so stark as that " and for what?" Romney mused, according to Coppins. "It's not like you're going to be famous and powerful because you became a United States senator. It's like, really? You sell yourself so cheap?"

Romney added: "How do you sit next to him at lunch?"

#227 No, not the middle of the spectrum. Just some people who have said Trump and now Vance have gone too far. Nobody on the left thinks Dick Cheney or Liz Cheney, for example, are middle of the road. What we think is that they see the real danger Trump/Vance represent and have put country over party.

Doesn't matter. When Jeb, W, Romney, McCAin were all in your face....they were extremists, racists, in bed with the pro-lifers and the KKK and hell bent on destroying this country.
But now? it's slowly all being walked back to the middle of the spectrum......all of them.
Posted by eberly at 2024-10-02 03:49 PM

It doesn't matter to you because you have this theory of the case which you have presented many times before. That's your opinion and your right.

You're all confused about this. It's just more fun to assign a position so you can attack them.
#230 | Posted by eberly

I'm not confused. You assigned a position to me I didn't take and then attacked it. Kudo!

"I didn't say middle of the road. I said middle of the spectrum...which means anywhere inside the boundries of extreme. think about a bell curve with a standard deviation on each side (the extremes). I'm (well ....you really) are placing all those individuals inside the middle."

There are multiple spectrums on a variety of issues. You are acting like there is one spectrum I am "placing all those individuals inside the middle." Again, you are assigning a position to me I didn't take and then attacking it. Congrats!

But McCain, like any republican, has to campaign in the South and pander to the republican base. That means the racists, the bankers, oilmen, pro-lifers......and while he was doing it.....he was all those things.
Bad Bad Bad Bad man...........
#235 | Posted by eberly

The thing I remember most about MCain when it comes to race/religion was the time a woman stood up in one of his rallies and said of Obama, "He's an Arab." To which McCain responded, "No, ma'am. He's a decent family man who I disagree with on the issues." For which he got loudly booed.

McCain: Obama not an Arab, crowd boos

-You assigned a position to me I didn't take and then attacked it.
You are well versed at identifying that move.
#242 | Posted by eberly

So are you.