Walz-Vance Civil Debate: Vance wins by a TKO; CBS Moderators Embarrass Themselves
Vice Presidential Debate between Minnesota Governor and former House Member Tim Walz and first-term Ohio Senator J.D. Vance on Tuesday evening was a very surprising – in a positive way – return to the civility and substance of high-level political debates we haven’t seen since Vice Presidential aspirants Joe Lieberman and Dick Cheney debated in 2000.
Vance was incredibly articulate throughout the debate, arguing every topic as well as it could be argued. His only weak spot was when he had to defend Donald Trump’s gaffe in his debate when he said that about his health care policy that he ”had concepts of a plan.”
Walz, less sure of himself throughout the debate – Fox’s Dana Perino said Kamala must have wished he had chosen Pa. Governor as her Vice Presidential running mate – when Margaret Brennan asked about his untruth regarding not traveling to Hong Kong when he said he did, Walz hemmed and hawed and said he must have misspoken.
There was too little foreign policy: nothing about the undecidedness of the Biden Administration in supporting Israel and Israel’s ignoring Biden in its prosecution of the war against Iran and its proxies.
On the undocumented migrants crossing the border, Walz claimed without evidence that the problem preceded Kamala and incredibly implied it was worse during the Trump Administration. When Vance sought to argue against that dubious claim, the moderators shut him off.
Never answered by Walz was Vance’s consistently pointing out that he (Walz), and by implication Harris, had some good ideas, but why hadn’t they been prioritized or even mentioned during the Kamala years in the Vice Presidency?
The moderators were, as expected, biased, sometimes stunningly, against Vance and for Walz – the overemphasis on abortion was embarrassing considering how little a president affects the availability of it, saved only by some unaffected moments during the debate. Still, Walz won a point when mentioning the death of a mother who couldn’t get an abortion. Why no mention of the lack of news conferences?
But there were moments wherein the pro-Democratic bias was particularly evident after the debate was introduced by firmly left-wing CBS anchor John Dickerson, who has worked with far-left Al Franken for years.
O’Donnell opined “The consensus is that the world is warming at an unprecedented rate,” as if to chastise Vance for not realizing this important issue.
Brennan criticized Vance for not adding to his point about Haitian immigrants that experts “say many of the Haitians are legal.”
Overall, the likeability of both Vice Presidential candidates was raised, but as a debate evaluator, my final verdict was that Vance clearly won by a technical knockout.. The only serious losers were Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan. Can anyone not run a debate disinterestedly at the networks?
Richard E. Vatz https://wp.towson.edu/vatz/ is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of political rhetoric at Towson University and author of The Only Authentic of Persuasion: the Agenda-Spin Model (Bookwrights House, 2024) and over 200 other works, essays, lectures, and op-eds. He is the benefactor of the Richard E. Vatz Best Debater Award at Towson. The Van Bokkelen Auditorium at Towson University has been named after him.