Do vice-presidential debates even matter? I dunno. In '88, Lloyd Bentsen slapped the shit out of Dan Quayle in theirs and Bush/Quayle still won. Then again, the current election is not behaving much like past ones. I thought JD Vance scored some points in tonight's veep debate by not coming off as quite the crazed maniac that he's seemed like recently. Of course, he's not the one on that ticket who's running out of time to temper his image. No one who thinks Trump is a lying looney is going to think, "Hey, I'm going to vote for that guy. His running mate isn't quite as bad as I thought."
But Vance didn't do a good job back-pedaling from "They're eating the dogs! They're eating the cats!" and he looked like the biggest weasel on the planet dodging the question of whether Trump lost the last election.
And I'm probably as amazed as you are that after years and years of doing everything possible to declare Obamacare a disaster and get rid of it, Trump has now decided to claim credit for it working as well as it has. His fervent supporters — and all those red states that have never fully embraced it — have got to be pretty confused over that.
Walz wasn't as great a debater as some of us hoped he'd be. He managed to make a strong case that what Vance is wrong about Abortion but if that issue matters to you in the slightest, I think you already know what side you're on. He also came off as avuncular and honest and he had an answer to the question about Iran and Vance didn't. It wasn't a rout like Harris v. Trump but I think Vance seemed more like a human being and the folks who make up Kamala's campaign commercials got a number of juicy quotes they can use in next week's ads.
That may be the only thing that matters in a vice-presidential debate: Did someone say something that can be used against them and their ticket? Other than that, it'll all be forgotten in 48 hours.