VP Debate Will Have No Impact

Good Wednesday morning, Friends,

If Governor Mike Pence were at the top of the GOP ticket, I'd be a little worried right now. He clearly cleaned Tim Kaine's clock in the VP debate last night--and came across as 'presidential'.

It wasn't so much what he said (most of which was false), but the clear, cool manner in which he said it. He was smooth and polished, and came across as clearly the more worthy candidate on his GOP ticket. Admittedly, that bar is pretty low with Donald Trump at the top of it.

Be that as it may, Senator Tim Kaine initially came on like he'd had one too many Starbucks. Even though he basically stuck to the facts, he interrupted Pence incessantly--more than 70 times--and seemed abrasive, if not combative.

Tim Kaine obviously missed this road sign on his way to
last night's debate.

MSNBC's Chris Matthews reminded me of something the other day. He said political debates should be watched with the sound off. With no audio, it's pretty easy to tell who the winner is.

That's absolutely true for this debate.

First, the debate production was set up incorrectly. When the candidates were both listening to moderator Elaine Quijano of CBS, on the split screen they were looking in opposite directions off screen and away from the home audience...whoops!

The same happened when they spoke to Ms. Quijano directly. The candidates were looking off screen and away from the home audience. And Tim Kaine's weird camera angle was far worse than Mike Pence's.

Pence seemed to quickly figure out the quirky camera set up and where to look for best effect, but Kaine never did. And it hurt him.

This production was rehearsed with stand-ins all day long, and I can't believe this ridiculous error wasn't caught. Interestingly, the only other pundit that said anything about it was my idol, David Gergen.

So, the production was lousy, and especially so for Kaine as it exacerbated his poor performance. And he didn't help himself by being overly energetic and somewhat frenzied--especially at the offset.

But no worries, in fewer than four days' time, we won't even remember the debate whose only really memorable line was this from Pence to Kaine: "You've whipped out that Mexican thing again."

Sunday evening marks round two in the three-round presidential slugfest.

Reports are coming in that Trump is seething this morning over his veep's upstaging performance and Pence sidestepping several opportunities to defend his boss.

The question really is this. Did Trump learn anything about debating from his running mate?

We'll have the answer to this question on Sunday. My guess is that Trump will still be Trump.