I am not so sure Vance won the debate, first of all, and commentators seem to be missing the good lines. So, for example, in his answer about his time in China, Walz fumbled a bit, yes, but then he turned that fumble into some very good info, info that no one is reporting on, including his taking all kinds of students to China and wishing that Donald Trump could have taken one of those trips, because if he had, he wouldn't be cozying up to Xi! That seemed like an excellent recovery to me, yet no one has reported on it that I have seen.
Second, Walz spoke with passion and with details about several specific programs in Minnesota. Those details and that passion mattered to me. So much for the media wanting specifics, I guess! I also thought he connected a couple of important dots in Harris's housing initiative: he was able to buy his first home because of a veteran-sponsored loan. Huh! Fancy that. A leg up . . .
And third, Walz was very good on gun violence. Sometimes, it's just the guns. And he tied it to a question about his changing his mind. The young people viewing the debate mocked Vance for saying stronger windows and better locks on doors would do the job!!
Finally, Walz communicated knowledge, competence, and sincerity. Along with a deep understanding of how government works. I agree, no real zingers, until the end. But I didn't want that from him. I wanted what he gave: a grasp of reality from a real human being who cares about his fellow human beings. He LIVES his faith, and it shows.
Thinking back to how Vance made me feel during that debate:
He's always been off-putting and disgusting - like Vincent Donofrio's bug wearing a man's skin as a disguise in Men in Black.
Last night it was more like the Twilight Zone or Outer Limits, when the person seems almost "too normal" and the contrast of the words and tone cause a chill down your spine.
Apparently America's education system has managed to completely extract from citizens is their bullshit meter. Vance did three things very well in the debate: he was cordial; he wouldn't answer questions honestly; and he lied constantly. Why are so many Americans blind to this? Answer: because they are stupid, ignorant and evil, in their own ways.
America as a country would not be taken seriously were it not for the giant and threatening footprint of its economy and military. Otherwise, it's becoming a laughingstock.
I like your response. It brings to mind the Anna Karenina principle: Each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. And as there are many ways to be an unhappy family, there are many ways to be deplorable. How many varieties of deplorability are there in Hillary’s basket of deplorables? We need a typology: techno bros, the denizens of Wall Street, narrow minded racists, party ideologues, Fox News addicts, unprincipled news hosts, people who think reality TV is real, misogynists. Not sure, however, that being stupid qualifies as deplorable, unless stupidity is one’s choice.
Taking action can reduce stress! Let’s mail Get-out-the-vote postcards to urge everyone to vote Blue! Some people hand-write the message and addresses in colorful markers. That’s very time-consuming - and my hand writing is terrible. So I buy cards with pre-printed voter instructions, and addresses printed right on the cards (or on sheets of Avery labels they provide). You can often buy stamps there, too!
You want cards with the Voterizer QR code (or web address) printed on. The recipient aims their smart phone camera at the code, a web site appears, they enter their state - in a flash, they can check if they’re registered, register if they are not (in some states, they have until 14 days before the election!). They can also ask for a mail-in ballot. Right then and there!
Unless you want to do a lot of writing, check the card’s back view before ordering - some cards have state-specific imagery on the front, but blank backs. If you get pre-printed cards, you only need to write a couple sentences in a colorful fine-tip marker.
I’ve sent out 350 cards already to GA, AZ, PA, and MI. Who will join me?
I expect that Walz was prepped to use his nice approach, but he missed so many opportunities to call out his opponents obvious lies and totally misrepresenting statements, that it was disheartening to watch.
Vance personified the slick and cunning devil we were taught about in Sunday School, and were warned to not be deceived by!
That said, I don't think it will make one iota of difference in this election. And with the baseball playoffs on, and lots of folks in the SE preoccupied by bigger concerns - if in fact they even had electricity - my guess is that the audience was pretty small, and mostly only folks like us were watching.
Bill is basically correct about last night’s debate. Most of Governor Walz’s answers were awkward and clumsy. And he missed opportunity after opportunity to take a wrecking ball to Trump and Vance.
If, a sliver more of Vance’s answers had even a semblance of truth to them, he would have won the debate hands down. But his lies were so flagrant I am confident that most Americans can see right through his bullshit. Also, I am reluctant to believe that last night’s debate will have any impact whatsoever on swaying the tiny number of truly undecided voters who remain toward one candidate the other.
Walz was chosen by VP Harris to be her running mate primarily because he is the folksy and down-to-Earth midwestern Governor and football coach whose prairie populism was supposed to serve as a counterweight to Vance’s Ivy League educated slickness and phoniness. Governor Walz was supposed to be able to call out Trump’s and especially Vance’s BS when he saw it, and in a folksy way. He failed miserably at this objective in the debate last night, in my judgement.
However I disagree with Bill a little bit about whether last night’s debate is going to have an impact in any way on how “normie Republicans” vote. They are not that large in number overall, and, like Bill, I am not exactly sure how many of them actually are out there.
And am skeprical that there are really undecided voters who are wavering between voting for VP Harris and Trump, even if they tell pollsters that they are. The well educated and affluent conservatives like General Stanley McCrystal, the Cheneys, former Arizona Senator Jeff Flake, and the writers at The Bulwark, for example, have already committed to voting for VP Harris. And other conservatives who fit into this category like Mike Pence, George W. Bush, and Mitt Romney have made it abundantly clear that they are going to skip over the top of the ticket..
Trump knows full well that this demographic has essentially abandoned him, which is why he makes no attempt to win them over and only attempts to drive up turnout among his base of the aggrieved and those who are ultra right-wing on every issue and could care less about his depravity or maybe even revel in it.
Of course, I want the Harris-Walz campaign to continue to do everything possible to win disaffected Republican voters over, but I am far more concerned that the sense of urgency about the dire consequences another Trump presidency is not registering with various elements of the Democratic Party’s base, particularly African American and Latino voters. These Americans will need to show up in huge for VP Harris to win the Electoral College, being that many of them are located in key swing states like Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, and North Carolina.
Thus, the remaining 34 days of the presidential campaign should be devoted almost exclusively to driving up turnout among core Democratic constituencies. As much as I loathe the politics of fear, there really is no alternative in this situation when it comes to motivating these voters to show up and vote for VP Harris and other Democrats, in most races.
They need to feel like something is going to be taken away from them if opt to stay home or break for a third party, as opposed to vote for VP Harris.
Thus, for what it’s worth, I would strongly encourage the Harris-Walz campaign to focus entirely on only three issues for the final month of 2024 campaign: abortion rights, the threat that Trump and Vance pose to the rights and freedoms guaranteed to Americans under the United States Constitution and to American democracy-at-large, and Trump and Vance lacking the character and fitness to serve in high office in every conceivable way. Forget about the economy and cost of living at this point; it’s a lost a cause, despite what the economic data says.
Whether or not this will work, I am not sure. But this is the hill that pro-freedom and pro-democracy Americans of all political ideologies need to die on, if necessary. Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.
Let's hope the civility shown by the two VP prospects in last nights debate will remind undecided voters of how much they appreciate calm, decent human interaction. When compared to Trumps insane rantings at his rallies, the contrast may swing some votes Kamalas way.
Aloha, Bill: Interesting analysis by Bill K this morning. Having watched the “debate” and expecting a conflict-full 90 minutes, I came away somewhat flat. I had the thought that DJT could not be happy with Vance given his apparent ‘go along to get along’ folksy interaction with Waltz. I expected Vance to come out ‘swinging’ but alas he did not, with the major exceptions of the 2020 election outcome AND the outcomes of the yet-to-be-held 2024 presidential election. DJT is NOT a normal, reasonable, cooperative, candidate. I tended to ‘hear’ much of the civil debate in non-conflicted terminology and the occasional deference to one another during the affair. I guess I would think that the Donald would not be pleased with this ‘milktoast’ affair.
I had a thought, and I really hate how effective this might have been: Vance calling Walz "Tim" and Walz calling him (appropriately) Senator Vance.
As a debate kid, it was such a painfully obvious attempt to goad Walz. I'm glad he didn't take that bait, but holy moly it made me want to grab Vance and just punch him in the face. I imagine he got bullied as a kid and he's in full "revenge of the nerds" mode. Very punchable.
Whatever Vance thinks he gained by the lack of an honorific he lost again by repeating “Margaret” like he was talking to a slow child.
Walz came off as a kind guy with good manners. Vance came off as a slick debater who needs better manners.
Most people like kindness. The ones who don’t, like MAGA, aren’t voting for Walz anyway. Though I like to think that the two couples standing on the stage having a cheerful and friendly conversation after the debate likely made MAGA heads explode.
When I heard the witless folks at CBS and the dingle-brained “moderators” were not going to take the trouble to fact-check, I didn’t bother to watch the “debate”, if that’s what you want to call any of the current TV spew. I don’t have or watch TV.
As a psych nurse with 30 years experience I have been listening very carefully to jd vance. Last night he came across as expected, slippery(slimy) and deeply fraudulent causing the hair on the back of my neck to stand up as it always has at work when dealing with a client who is genuinely anti-social. Walz was obviously not as experienced at debating and lying as vance. I saw some of the same issues when trump debated Biden. Both democrats appeared overwhelmed, disoriented and at somewhat of a loss responding to an overwhelming,rapid fire barrage of lies from the republicans. It was very clear to me last night that Walz is earnest, worthy of my trust and must be our beloved country’s next vice president.
“Veni, Vidi, Vance-i”—drum roll, then we introduce the next act: Sally Rand and her fan dance!
Still, one has to wonder if, in last night’s debate, the suggestions by Walz of the similarities between he and Vance … is some sort of sly permission structure for Republicans fed up with Trump to vote Harris.
Bill was right. Vance could have swayed undecided voters last night to vote for the Trump-Vance ticket. Vance showed civility and moderation, eagerness to please and find consensus. So what if he was lying? He wasn’t going to get our votes anyway. His target audience was those pesky undecideds in swing states. Gotta hand it to the guy, shameless as he his.
I think Bill has his finger on it. This election is going to be decided by a very small group of swingy people...people who probably voted for Trump in 2016 and Biden in 2020. A lot of them are the kind of people I work with - owners and managers of small businesses who think Trump is better for the economy and a "businessman" (wrong) but don't like his style and realize at some level that he's bad for the country. They are in the WSJ club of just wanting a permission structure to vote GOP. Vance may have given them that. "Ya, Trump's a nut but look at this smart guy who will be there moderating him and probably take over when Trump gets too old and steps away."
If they think trump is better for the economy and is a "businessman", how do they stay in business with such a lack of economic and business knowledge?
Vance reminds us of Lyndon Johnson whom we believed was “Slick.” Vance is polished but slippery. He obviously doesn’t remember Trump’s term as President. How many people feel the economy was “great” during Covid? Obviously not if you were a restaurant owner. What about Trump being utterly unprepared for a disease like Covid? Remember the struggle to get medical equipment and masks? Walz, despite his pauses to get his thoughts together, sounded like a person with experience both in Congress and as a two time Governor.
I am not so sure Vance won the debate, first of all, and commentators seem to be missing the good lines. So, for example, in his answer about his time in China, Walz fumbled a bit, yes, but then he turned that fumble into some very good info, info that no one is reporting on, including his taking all kinds of students to China and wishing that Donald Trump could have taken one of those trips, because if he had, he wouldn't be cozying up to Xi! That seemed like an excellent recovery to me, yet no one has reported on it that I have seen.
Second, Walz spoke with passion and with details about several specific programs in Minnesota. Those details and that passion mattered to me. So much for the media wanting specifics, I guess! I also thought he connected a couple of important dots in Harris's housing initiative: he was able to buy his first home because of a veteran-sponsored loan. Huh! Fancy that. A leg up . . .
And third, Walz was very good on gun violence. Sometimes, it's just the guns. And he tied it to a question about his changing his mind. The young people viewing the debate mocked Vance for saying stronger windows and better locks on doors would do the job!!
Finally, Walz communicated knowledge, competence, and sincerity. Along with a deep understanding of how government works. I agree, no real zingers, until the end. But I didn't want that from him. I wanted what he gave: a grasp of reality from a real human being who cares about his fellow human beings. He LIVES his faith, and it shows.
Thinking back to how Vance made me feel during that debate:
He's always been off-putting and disgusting - like Vincent Donofrio's bug wearing a man's skin as a disguise in Men in Black.
Last night it was more like the Twilight Zone or Outer Limits, when the person seems almost "too normal" and the contrast of the words and tone cause a chill down your spine.
I hope that's how he made the "undecideds" feel.
Apparently America's education system has managed to completely extract from citizens is their bullshit meter. Vance did three things very well in the debate: he was cordial; he wouldn't answer questions honestly; and he lied constantly. Why are so many Americans blind to this? Answer: because they are stupid, ignorant and evil, in their own ways.
America as a country would not be taken seriously were it not for the giant and threatening footprint of its economy and military. Otherwise, it's becoming a laughingstock.
I like your response. It brings to mind the Anna Karenina principle: Each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. And as there are many ways to be an unhappy family, there are many ways to be deplorable. How many varieties of deplorability are there in Hillary’s basket of deplorables? We need a typology: techno bros, the denizens of Wall Street, narrow minded racists, party ideologues, Fox News addicts, unprincipled news hosts, people who think reality TV is real, misogynists. Not sure, however, that being stupid qualifies as deplorable, unless stupidity is one’s choice.
Taking action can reduce stress! Let’s mail Get-out-the-vote postcards to urge everyone to vote Blue! Some people hand-write the message and addresses in colorful markers. That’s very time-consuming - and my hand writing is terrible. So I buy cards with pre-printed voter instructions, and addresses printed right on the cards (or on sheets of Avery labels they provide). You can often buy stamps there, too!
You want cards with the Voterizer QR code (or web address) printed on. The recipient aims their smart phone camera at the code, a web site appears, they enter their state - in a flash, they can check if they’re registered, register if they are not (in some states, they have until 14 days before the election!). They can also ask for a mail-in ballot. Right then and there!
Check out Field Team 6 - https://www.fieldteam6.org/postcarding1 - and Blue Wave - https://shop.bluewavepostcards.org/ - for great pre-printed cards.
Unless you want to do a lot of writing, check the card’s back view before ordering - some cards have state-specific imagery on the front, but blank backs. If you get pre-printed cards, you only need to write a couple sentences in a colorful fine-tip marker.
I’ve sent out 350 cards already to GA, AZ, PA, and MI. Who will join me?
I expect that Walz was prepped to use his nice approach, but he missed so many opportunities to call out his opponents obvious lies and totally misrepresenting statements, that it was disheartening to watch.
Vance personified the slick and cunning devil we were taught about in Sunday School, and were warned to not be deceived by!
That said, I don't think it will make one iota of difference in this election. And with the baseball playoffs on, and lots of folks in the SE preoccupied by bigger concerns - if in fact they even had electricity - my guess is that the audience was pretty small, and mostly only folks like us were watching.
Hello Everyone,
Bill is basically correct about last night’s debate. Most of Governor Walz’s answers were awkward and clumsy. And he missed opportunity after opportunity to take a wrecking ball to Trump and Vance.
If, a sliver more of Vance’s answers had even a semblance of truth to them, he would have won the debate hands down. But his lies were so flagrant I am confident that most Americans can see right through his bullshit. Also, I am reluctant to believe that last night’s debate will have any impact whatsoever on swaying the tiny number of truly undecided voters who remain toward one candidate the other.
Walz was chosen by VP Harris to be her running mate primarily because he is the folksy and down-to-Earth midwestern Governor and football coach whose prairie populism was supposed to serve as a counterweight to Vance’s Ivy League educated slickness and phoniness. Governor Walz was supposed to be able to call out Trump’s and especially Vance’s BS when he saw it, and in a folksy way. He failed miserably at this objective in the debate last night, in my judgement.
However I disagree with Bill a little bit about whether last night’s debate is going to have an impact in any way on how “normie Republicans” vote. They are not that large in number overall, and, like Bill, I am not exactly sure how many of them actually are out there.
And am skeprical that there are really undecided voters who are wavering between voting for VP Harris and Trump, even if they tell pollsters that they are. The well educated and affluent conservatives like General Stanley McCrystal, the Cheneys, former Arizona Senator Jeff Flake, and the writers at The Bulwark, for example, have already committed to voting for VP Harris. And other conservatives who fit into this category like Mike Pence, George W. Bush, and Mitt Romney have made it abundantly clear that they are going to skip over the top of the ticket..
Trump knows full well that this demographic has essentially abandoned him, which is why he makes no attempt to win them over and only attempts to drive up turnout among his base of the aggrieved and those who are ultra right-wing on every issue and could care less about his depravity or maybe even revel in it.
Of course, I want the Harris-Walz campaign to continue to do everything possible to win disaffected Republican voters over, but I am far more concerned that the sense of urgency about the dire consequences another Trump presidency is not registering with various elements of the Democratic Party’s base, particularly African American and Latino voters. These Americans will need to show up in huge for VP Harris to win the Electoral College, being that many of them are located in key swing states like Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, and North Carolina.
Thus, the remaining 34 days of the presidential campaign should be devoted almost exclusively to driving up turnout among core Democratic constituencies. As much as I loathe the politics of fear, there really is no alternative in this situation when it comes to motivating these voters to show up and vote for VP Harris and other Democrats, in most races.
They need to feel like something is going to be taken away from them if opt to stay home or break for a third party, as opposed to vote for VP Harris.
Thus, for what it’s worth, I would strongly encourage the Harris-Walz campaign to focus entirely on only three issues for the final month of 2024 campaign: abortion rights, the threat that Trump and Vance pose to the rights and freedoms guaranteed to Americans under the United States Constitution and to American democracy-at-large, and Trump and Vance lacking the character and fitness to serve in high office in every conceivable way. Forget about the economy and cost of living at this point; it’s a lost a cause, despite what the economic data says.
Whether or not this will work, I am not sure. But this is the hill that pro-freedom and pro-democracy Americans of all political ideologies need to die on, if necessary. Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.
Shanah Tovah U’metukah
David Hurwitz
Chicago, IL
Let's hope the civility shown by the two VP prospects in last nights debate will remind undecided voters of how much they appreciate calm, decent human interaction. When compared to Trumps insane rantings at his rallies, the contrast may swing some votes Kamalas way.
Aloha, Bill: Interesting analysis by Bill K this morning. Having watched the “debate” and expecting a conflict-full 90 minutes, I came away somewhat flat. I had the thought that DJT could not be happy with Vance given his apparent ‘go along to get along’ folksy interaction with Waltz. I expected Vance to come out ‘swinging’ but alas he did not, with the major exceptions of the 2020 election outcome AND the outcomes of the yet-to-be-held 2024 presidential election. DJT is NOT a normal, reasonable, cooperative, candidate. I tended to ‘hear’ much of the civil debate in non-conflicted terminology and the occasional deference to one another during the affair. I guess I would think that the Donald would not be pleased with this ‘milktoast’ affair.
I had a thought, and I really hate how effective this might have been: Vance calling Walz "Tim" and Walz calling him (appropriately) Senator Vance.
As a debate kid, it was such a painfully obvious attempt to goad Walz. I'm glad he didn't take that bait, but holy moly it made me want to grab Vance and just punch him in the face. I imagine he got bullied as a kid and he's in full "revenge of the nerds" mode. Very punchable.
Whatever Vance thinks he gained by the lack of an honorific he lost again by repeating “Margaret” like he was talking to a slow child.
Walz came off as a kind guy with good manners. Vance came off as a slick debater who needs better manners.
Most people like kindness. The ones who don’t, like MAGA, aren’t voting for Walz anyway. Though I like to think that the two couples standing on the stage having a cheerful and friendly conversation after the debate likely made MAGA heads explode.
When I heard the witless folks at CBS and the dingle-brained “moderators” were not going to take the trouble to fact-check, I didn’t bother to watch the “debate”, if that’s what you want to call any of the current TV spew. I don’t have or watch TV.
I chose instead to read a book.
As a psych nurse with 30 years experience I have been listening very carefully to jd vance. Last night he came across as expected, slippery(slimy) and deeply fraudulent causing the hair on the back of my neck to stand up as it always has at work when dealing with a client who is genuinely anti-social. Walz was obviously not as experienced at debating and lying as vance. I saw some of the same issues when trump debated Biden. Both democrats appeared overwhelmed, disoriented and at somewhat of a loss responding to an overwhelming,rapid fire barrage of lies from the republicans. It was very clear to me last night that Walz is earnest, worthy of my trust and must be our beloved country’s next vice president.
Walz was at a disadvantage in that he isn't as practiced at lying as JD.
“Veni, Vidi, Vance-i”—drum roll, then we introduce the next act: Sally Rand and her fan dance!
Still, one has to wonder if, in last night’s debate, the suggestions by Walz of the similarities between he and Vance … is some sort of sly permission structure for Republicans fed up with Trump to vote Harris.
Amazing how civil our process becomes when Trump is removed from the process. (ding, ding, ding)
Bill was right. Vance could have swayed undecided voters last night to vote for the Trump-Vance ticket. Vance showed civility and moderation, eagerness to please and find consensus. So what if he was lying? He wasn’t going to get our votes anyway. His target audience was those pesky undecideds in swing states. Gotta hand it to the guy, shameless as he his.
I think Bill has his finger on it. This election is going to be decided by a very small group of swingy people...people who probably voted for Trump in 2016 and Biden in 2020. A lot of them are the kind of people I work with - owners and managers of small businesses who think Trump is better for the economy and a "businessman" (wrong) but don't like his style and realize at some level that he's bad for the country. They are in the WSJ club of just wanting a permission structure to vote GOP. Vance may have given them that. "Ya, Trump's a nut but look at this smart guy who will be there moderating him and probably take over when Trump gets too old and steps away."
If they think trump is better for the economy and is a "businessman", how do they stay in business with such a lack of economic and business knowledge?
Vance reminds us of Lyndon Johnson whom we believed was “Slick.” Vance is polished but slippery. He obviously doesn’t remember Trump’s term as President. How many people feel the economy was “great” during Covid? Obviously not if you were a restaurant owner. What about Trump being utterly unprepared for a disease like Covid? Remember the struggle to get medical equipment and masks? Walz, despite his pauses to get his thoughts together, sounded like a person with experience both in Congress and as a two time Governor.