I Watched the Vice-Presidential Debate So You Didn't Have To

For fans of TV shows where two older gentlemen interrupt each other and compete to condescend to each other, Tuesday night's vice-presidential debate was a dream come true. For the rest of us—at least those who didn't switch over to a thrilling American League Wild Card game that went into extra innings—the silver lining in the contest between Democrat Tim Kaine and Republican Mike Pence is that at least we won't have to suffer through another one of these.

Throughout the 90-minute debate, moderated by CBS's Elaine Quijano, the two career politicians talked over each other and Quijano, and repeatedly went off on tangents that had little or nothing to do with her questions. Kaine's strategy was to bring up Donald Trump at every turn and to attack the GOP candidate whenever possible, at one point turning a discussion about Syria somehow to Trump's refusal to release his tax returns.

For his part, Pence played the role of a midwestern Roger Sterling, dripping with confidence and self-superiority. While Kaine talked, he shook his head the way you would at a child, and when the Democrat brought up especially damaging statements made by Trump, Pence shrugged him off, denying that his running mate had ever called for other countries to acquire nukes, praised Russian President Vladimir Putin's leadership, said women who had abortions should be punished, or floated the idea of banning all Muslims from immigrating to the US.

The closest Pence came to actually defending these outlandish positions was when he admitted, "Look, he's not a polished politician like you and Hillary Clinton… You know, things don't always come out exactly the way he means them." This was a polite way of referring to Trump's habit of talking out of his ass on topics he apparently knows nothing about—most of the GOP candidate's statements in interviews are off-the-cuff remarks that don't reflect actual policy endorsements. Unfortunately, all that ass-talking is recorded for posterity, which allowed the Clinton team to quickly cut a video highlighting the absurdity of Pence's constant denials of stuff Trump has said:

At the — Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton)October 5, 2016

Still, judging the debate purely as a piece of theater, Kaine clearly came off worse. He constantly tried and failed to interrupt Pence, making him seem impatient; Pence's calm baritone, by contrast, projected a cool, collected front. Kaine had a few obviously canned talking points—"Do you want a 'you're hired' president in Hillary Clinton, or do you want a 'you're fired' president in Donald Trump?"; "You are Donald Trump's apprentice"—that Pence easily swatted aside as "pre-done lines."

Pence earned such universal praise from the media for his demeanor and control that it may have pissed Trump off—Tuesday night, multiple reporters said that the candidate was angered about being upstaged and upset that Pence didn't defend him more aggressively.

It likely didn't help Trump's mood that the VP candidate broke with him on a few issues, offering a vision of an alternate universe where the Republican Party nominated a more mainstream leader. During a discussion of policing, he rejected the notion that institutional racism was a problem for cops and denounced the "badmouthing" of law enforcement—but he did voice support for criminal justice reform, even though Trump's own idea of criminal justice reform is just more aggressive policing. Later, Pence called Putin "the small and bullying leader of Russia" and suggested that the US should use military force against Syria's Russia-allied Assad regime, though Trump has praised Putin and hasn't said anything about attacking Assad.

Before the debate began, the media competed to see who could give less of a shit about what the Daily Beast called the "Thrilla in Vanilla." BuzzFeed compiled tweets from people joking about how boring it would be; the ever-droll New York Times announced that it "might be the least anticipated vice-presidential debate in 40 years." Pence and Kaine were too earnest, too daddish, a tall glass of milk versus a pile of mayonnaise, a CBS sitcom whereas Trump–Clinton was an HBO drama, or so the narrative went.

But if you got past all the crosstalk and squabbling over whether Trump said the things he said, what came through was a fundamental disagreement about the state of America that is at the heart of this entire miserable campaign.

In his opening remarks, Pence said that Barack Obama and Clinton "have run this economy into a ditch." Later, he announced that "America is less safe today than it was the day that Barack Obama became president of the United States… We've weakened America's place in the world. It's been a combination of factors, but mostly it's been a lack of leadership." The solution, he argued over and over, was "strength," though what that meant exactly—ground troops in Syria? Tariffs?—was never clear. Regardless, the basic concept was that America was weak, and its people were struggling; though Pence never said Trump's slogan, that's what "make America great again" is all about.

Kaine's response to all this, though maybe not articulated as well as it could have been, is that the numbers show that unemployment is dropping and wages are rising. As for the country's safety, well, Osama bin Ladin is dead, and the Iran treaty makes it harder for that country to get a nuclear weapon. Strip away the personal appeals and defects of Clinton and Trump and the question is a simple one about whether eight years of a Democrat in the White House has made your life better.

The debate also featured a few moments of substance that were missing from the first presidential debate. The best came near the end, when the candidates, both devout Catholics, disagreed on abortion. "We can encourage people to support life. Of course we can," Kaine said. "But why don't you trust women? Why doesn't Donald Trump trust women to make this choice for themselves?"

"A society can be judged by how it deals with its most vulnerable: the aged, the infirm, the disabled, and the unborn," Pence said, finishing an exchange that demonstrated the gulf between the pro-choice and pro-life positions.

Mostly, though, the debate was just a series of attacks and counterattacks free of fact-checking or much in the way of flow. After a long exchange that featured Pence attacking the Clinton Foundation and Kaine attacking the Trump Foundation, Quijano finally got a word in edgewise.

"Governor, I will give you 30 seconds to respond," she told Pence, "but, again, I would remind you both this was about North Korea."

Everyone laughed. What else could you do?

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