Veep Creep

The best way to understand Tim Walz and what a nice guy he is (and why Jim Gaffigan was the perfect fellow to portray him on "Saturday Night Live") is to consider his answer to a question in last night's vice presidential debate.  When asked about a misstatement he had made in saying that he had been in Beijing during the Tiananmen Square massacre in April 1989 when he wasn't in China until later that year, Walz prefaced his answer with a rambling recapitulation of his background to set up his reason for going to China and Hong Kong (then a British colony) on an educational trip in 1989 and eventually got to his explanton that he had simply misspoken, meaning to say he had been to China the same year as the  Tiananmen Square massacre.

In other words, Walz talked like a regular guy, an average Joe. James David Vance, his vice presidential opponent, was polished, glib, and disciplined, which is why he sounded more like the seasoned, Ivy League-educated debater he is.  And he used his abilities to spin a policy argument that was total BS.   For one thing, he actually insisted that there was a peaceful transfer of power between Donald Trump and Joe Biden on January 20, 2021, which made about as much sense as saying that the World Trade Center site was the safest place in New York on September 25, 2001 because the terrorists definitely weren't coming back.   He also expressed sorrow for Amber Furman's death in 2022 for being denied reproductive care in her home state of Georgia while slickly evading responsibility for advocating for a national abortion ban.  But his lies, fibs and other sorts of prevarications were a sideshow for Vance's biggest Jedi mind trick.  He actually expressed  agreement with Walz over the need to do something about child care and climate change, but he doesn't care at all about those issues, at least not in the abstract.  He only cares about how his wife can handle her career and their children, or how American corporations can profit by having government tariffs to promote solar-panel manufacturing to fight climate change (not that Vance would get solar panels for his own home).  He was clearly appropriating issues prosecuted by Democrats and fashioning to his own personal situation without regard to anyone else's.

For that reason, I believe Walz did better, despite some of his reticence in pushing harder on issues like January 6.  He spoke more forcefully on issues he cares about, like reproductive rights and care for veterans.  And he also hit Vance hard on the Ohio senator's advocacy for building affordable housing on federal lands, which wouldn't help build more affordable housing in New Jersey, because the only federal hands we have for Fort Dix and McGuire Air Force Base. Walz wanted to know where thes efederal lands are, and whether they would be oil drilling on those same federal lands.

Even though vice presidential debates are considered irrelevant, this one may matter, simply because Vance is the educated, erudite demagogue that many people have already feared would arise.   And if Trump returns to the White House and dies in office after establishing a dictatorship, Vance, who at 40 would be the youngest Vice President since Richard Nixon, would become President and likely hold on to power until 2064.  It is not always true, by the way, that people vote for President, not Vice President.  If it were always true,  the Democratic Party wouldn't have swapped out Henry Wallace for Harry Truman as Franklin Roosevelt's vice presidential running mate.  In 1944, FDR, who was visibly in poor health, won only 53 percent of the popular vote and a shift of 300,000 votes  in the right states would have elected Republican Thomas E. Dewey.  If the politically arch-liberal Henry Wallace had been on the Democratic ticket in 1944, the election - and history - might have turned out very differently.

Kudos to CBS News' Norah O'Donnell and Margaret Brennan - two Irish gals - for their masterful debate moderation.