President Biden: The NEW one and only politics thread

Stumble. He was talking about how talking to Sandy Hook parents changed his mind on gun control and should have said "school shooting victims."

 

I'm glad it didn't turn into a bloodbath. I think many people are unhappy about that. Most of them are on the right.

 

In other words ... as I often say, "People are stupid."

 

I'm just glad one of the presidential nominees had more pressing issues than the debate / crossthread (literally in the middle of the debate)

 

Unless one candidate visibly pees his pants on stage, a VP debate does not influence the election outcome. The Pop Tarts Bowl of politics.

 

Vance’s low approval ratings is why. He certainly didn’t hurt them tonight.

 

I think I’ll wait on some evidence on that. Maybe it’s true. Maybe people interested in a VP debate have already formed their opinion.

 

Not the NYT pitchbot, but an actual headline:

 

No, you basically said that both of the candidates were having fun that night. That was your nuanced analysis

 

Unless you know he lied on just about every answer.

But it's not about the nuaince with a VP

I'd like to see the ratings for number of eyeballs but I don't know how you erase two and a half months to have those terrible numbers and you have a month of whatever he's going to do that will offset any of it

 

Let's first predicate this on the fact that none of this matters. The only two lines that anyone has ever remembered from any vice-presidential debate are first, "You sir are no Jack Kennedy," and in a distant second Admiral Stockdale's goofy, "Who am I? Why am I here?" opening in 1992, and that's a stretch (Jim Stockdale probably deserves a lot more respect than he got considering he got everything John McCain got in the Hanoi Hilton and then some). And Lloyd Bentsen lost, so who cares?

Begrudgingly, to his credit, J.D. Vance did a fairly good job over the first hour-plus of not coming off as an asshole, and there is some value in articulating opposition to Harris/Walz's platform without being a raving lunatic. I think the Mark McGwire-esque dodge wiped out whatever "winning" he did, however. Walz was nervous, and frankly, as someone who's served multiple terms in Congress and has been the governor of a decent-sized state for the better part of a decade, should have projected a better image. He botched the China thing, probably because he genuinely feels remorse about being caught in a lie. As @dick_nixon (a fun follow for me since I enjoy late 20th-century history) said, "Walz was coached to debate a different Vance." The congeniality of it all took a little bit out of his strengths. I honestly mostly watched to see if Walz was going to do a lot of Walz stuff, and he didn't. The overly coached Walz isn't very fun, but there's a reason you play that way in an event like this.

The downright stereotypical panel of "undecided Pennsylvania voters" leaned far enough to Walz that it almost seemed rigged (saying Vance evaded questions and seemed dishonest), but that very well might have been a small sample size.