VEEP: The Reality Version

Being a Vice-Presidential debate, I don't think the specifics of last night's debate between Kamala Harris and Mike Pence are as important as when two Presidential candidates are debating.  So, the question of "Who said what" and who won are a little more flexible.  I'll get to what I think is important in a moment, but I guess one has to do the basic housecleaning first.

I try to watch a debate from the perspective of undecided voters.  I know I'm not fully successful at that, I know I slide to my preferences, but I try.  As such, I think both candidates did...fine.  Some more "fine" at different moments than others, and not equally  But overall -- fine.

For the most part, I thought that Kamala Harris did better.  She prosecuted her case pretty well -- helped by being a former prosecutor, and Pence was put in the position of defending the indefensible.  He did that pretty well in a few cases.  The problem was that I think most people know that while he made good points on the surface, they also knew that the points weren't all connected with the real world they've been living in under truth.  In that regard, my biggest disappointment was that I didn't think she did as strong a job in responding to Mike Pence's charges about Democrats politicizing the pandemic, since I was waiting for her to leap out of her seat with a "Are you freaking kidding me??!!  Let me count the ways of Trump!!!" answer.  On the other hand, I suspect that not much of a response was needed, since most of the American public has seen Trump politicize the pandemic from Day 1 -- literally, not wanting to let passengers aboard a quarantined ship come on shore because he didn't want the number of infected Americans to go up.  And then on and on, attacking Democratic governors and states, even to the point, we later learned, of discussing a plan to not help Democratic states.  And his politicization of wearing face masks has likely lead to the massive spread of the disease.

But that leads to the question of what was important of the debate.  And I don't think it's "Who won?"  Mike Pence could have won the debate by a lot, and it wouldn't especially matter much.  (That said, for the reasons above, I do think that Kamala Harris won -- and that's what polls showed, by a lot, in fact..)  What mattered in the debate is who did the most for their team's candidacy, especially with Joe Biden being up by 10 points over Trump...and 5 million people already having voted.  Because the election is about the presidential candidates.

That's why what Pence had to do was not "win," but take voters away from the Biden-Harris campaign, in the face of so many voters fleeing Trump after his disastrous meltdown performance.  And in that regard, Pence failed miserably.  And Harris did well.  Again, Trump-Pence are 10 points down.  And that's because Trump is painted as a obnoxious, mean-spirited, thoughtless, white-supremacist boor who has contracted COVID-19 after eight months of downplaying it and ridiculing the wearing of masks.  And Pence did close to nothing to change that narrative.  He did next to nothing to help people’s perception of Trump and his campaign.  He probably even confirmed women's aghast reaction to Trump -- and maybe even worsened it, for women who had thought, "Well, at least Mike Pence is a gentlemen" and saw that he really wasn't.  And she was fairly personable, which fit in fine with Biden. Indeed, If anything, his own cold, wooden, condescending demeanor that kept talking over the female moderator past his time limit and even (bizarrely again, after the Trump debacle) occasionally kept interrupting Kamala Harris and trying to grill her with questions and "lecture" her only served reinforce the unfeeling, misogynistic, rude Trump.

Moreover, Kamala Harris really had one, major task.  Make the public comfortable with her as a Vice-President.  And whether or not one liked all her answers or even any of them, or liked her, I think that for the most part she succeed well in making most people -- and especially most undecided voters -- comfortable with her becoming Vice-President of the United States.

But above all, the Trump campaign was down by 10 points, because so much of the country was aghast at what they saw at his very worst (which is saying a lot) followed by being hospitalized for the infectious disease he'd been ridiculing.  And Mike Pence had to turn that around.  And immediately, but not only has voting started, but 5 million people have already voted.  And he not only didn't turn things around, but he really didn't even stop the bleeding.  Whether or not he "won" the debate (and now we'll get into details -- a CNN poll showed that Kamala Harris actually won -- by over 20 points, 59-38%!  And she not only swamped with women, 69-30%, but even though it was was very different with men...she actually won there, too, 48-46%), that question of winning is not only moot to what was actually important last night -- because ultimately, the election is about the presidential candidates, and that's the case that the vice-presidential candidates must make -- but I think Mike Pence got pummeled in what he had to do in the face of disaster.  And possibly could have even bled some votes.  Especially because most viewers -- and especially most undecided viewers -- know that they live in a different world than the one Mike Pence was trying to describe.  And know what they've seen of Trump for four years, and know what they saw of Trump on the debate stage, and what know they've seen of Trump since he contracted the coronavirus, even that very day calling it "a blessing from God"!!!!!"  And in the end, especially because voters said he lost the debate, by a lot.

And the real world, unlike what Pence was trying to describe, is actually a tough place today.  And it got tougher for Trump-Pence.  Even if they're lucky enough to find that the polls stayed the same.

When you're floundering in the middle of the ocean and starting to hallucinate, staying afloat is absolutely important, but what you need is to get rescued.  Before hunger sets in.  And the sharks arrive.  And the blue wave washes over you.