Democrat Walz clearly had a harder time in the vice presidential debate broadcast by CBS. It was obvious from the beginning. Media coverage of the debate has been dominated by comments about how nervous the Minnesota governor appeared.
Video of CBS News vice presidential debate between JD Vance and Tim Walz | Full Video
The very first question on the current escalation of violence in the Middle East showed this – and it is a lesson learned, according to which governors like Walz have a handicap in presidential elections in the form of minimal experience with foreign policy, which was immediately apparent in Walz’s case.
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Walz’s worst moment was a question about his visit to China in 1989, at the time of the Tiananmen Square massacre. Walz has indicated in past interviews that he was in Hong Kong at the time, but it appears he was not actually there until several weeks later.
When the CBS presenters put it to him, he decided not to deny it and that he was “exaggerating” in the vernacular. This may be a smart tactic in the long run, but right in the debate, his response was flimsy to the point of being awkward.
In contrast, Vance, a Republican, is the type of politician who thrives on debate. That’s not to say he doesn’t have his media issues. However, if in the last two months he ironed out very sharp statements in interviews several times, he entered the debate much more conciliatory.
“Servant” concord
To some extent this was true for both. The leitmotif of the entire debate was the constant “gentlemanly” repetition of both Vance and Walz that they actually agree with each other, but that they are not sure if the same can be said about their fellow candidates Trump and Harris.
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Even Vance had a very weak moment in the debate, which American television stations will now surely remind him to hallelujah. It didn’t come until the very end, when Walz directly asked him if he accepted that Trump had lost the 2020 election.
Vance was unable to do so, and for all the gentlemanly goodwill that mostly reigned among the vice presidential candidates, he reminded the United States of the radical chaos that Trump’s Republican politics represent.
That was a smart move by Walz. Vance is many things, but he is certainly not a stupid person. He certainly realizes that it would be more politically tactful to acknowledge that Trump lost the last election and focus on the future. But Trump would never forgive him for that.
Matěj Schneider|photo: Tereza Kunderová, Czech Radio
Despite this, Vance came out of the debate as the more sovereign candidate. For Walz, it can only be a consolation that the debates of the vice presidential candidates usually do not change the electoral outlook.
Just so that it would be no different in a year when there probably won’t be another public debate between Trump and Harris, and when his co-candidate doesn’t even give many interviews.
The author works on the voxpot.cz server
