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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Yeah, things kinda got outta hand.
Aside from the constant interruptions and stuff, Kaine kinda stuck way too closely on his main focal points (Trump's taxes returns, praising Putin, etc.) instead of addressing whatever issues were most relevant, as I kinda think an actual elaboration of stuff with Russia could've been better, and the North Korea stuff came kinda late. Pence sounded "okay-ish" on foreign policy stuff, though further reflection on the issues at hand makes it kinda obvious how much bullshit there is. Also kinda felt Kaine was harping a lot of Clinton's talking points and repeating them over and over again, though there isn't anything inherently wrong with espousing the same views and stuff. Obviously, he could've been more patient during the debate.
Pence's social positions are just completely untenable for me though, as I assume is the case for a lot of us. Comes off as a bit of a snake oil salesman.
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His social positions are untenable for us here, but for numerous Republicans who either support or turn a blind eye to these sorts of things and are reluctant to support Trump due to his blatant incompetence, Pence acting like a fairly normal Republican (and more importantly acting like an adult) might be enough to get them to vote for Trump. Based on demographics and other "fundamental" factors, this race should be within a point or two favoring the democrats slightly.
Looking at aggregates, Trump actually gained a bit of support from the debates, not nearly as much as Clinton for obvious reasons, but he certainly didn't lose support, since what we saw was no worse than the buffoon we've gotten to know and hate over the past year and a half. Pence's good debate performance might get more Republicans to rejoin the fold, bringing this race more in line with what it was just prior to the first debate. (democrats slightly ahead)
edited 4th Oct '16 8:00:32 PM by CaptainCapsase
That part where the moderator asked a question about North Korea's latest nuclear testing and both Pence and Kaine kept playing dodgeball about whose running mate's charity foundation is the best was really cringey.
The closest thing either of them gave to an answer was Kaine talking about China.
edited 4th Oct '16 8:00:11 PM by LogoP
It is sometimes an appropriate response to reality to go insane.Trying to think how to express this, but I think part of the problem with a lot of the things Kaine brought up is that they are negative aspects of Trump, but for the most part, they aren't as serious as what Pence (generally falsely) attributed to Clinton and Obama, coupled with the fact that Kaine wasn't usually successful in tying those statements to broader bad policy.
Like Donald Trump's misogyny is revolting, but when Pence characterizes Obama/Clinton as disastrous leaders, it doesn't look bad by comparison.
And like with Trump's comments about Hispanics and Muslims, I think Kaine tried but largely failed to get across that Trump's policies/attitude indicates animus toward the entire group and not just the "bad apples".
The other issue is that besides indicating that Trump is a shit head, Kaine should have done more to indicate that Pence in his own way (including/especially LGBT issues), especially because Pence was clearly selling himself to conservatives. It should have been an opening for Kaine to attack Pence for being ultra-conservative.
Edit- Also, maybe he didn't bring it up then because he guessed it would come up immediately afterward anyway, but I wonder why when asked about what he struggled with in terms of religious/policy views, Kaine didn't bring up abortion himself and say something to the effect that legal abortion is a lesser evil than illegal abortion. Because by not talking about that, Pence was able to attack him on it.
edited 4th Oct '16 8:02:49 PM by Hodor2
I think this tweet sums up what Kaine was trying to do.https://twitter.com/MarcDuvoisin/status/783491770264858624
He might have lost the debate but won the week for Hillary. Why? Because Pence couldn't defend Trump. And Kaine had better soundbites than Pence.
General impression I'm seeing, including from my mom, is that the debate was a mess
(so I'm glad I didn't watch it).
Yeah, that question there both of them were talking mainly about abortion, that could have been an opening to talk about Pence's LGBT issues. However, I'm honestly not sure how Kaine as a Catholic would come off on that angle; Kaine isn't aggressively going after their rights like Pence but doctrinaly it's still verboten.
I'm definitely of the opinion that while Pence won this, he didn't win by enough to overcome the general tendency of VP debates not mattering. He was very much selling himself as a reasonable standard Republican- which meant he couldn't really go on the offensive much, so Kaine left relatively unscathed.
@Elle- Well, my impression is that Americans are actually fairly pro-choice in practice even though depending on how questions are phrased, they will characterize themselves as pro-life. So I think it would have been better to use that justification for support for abortion rather than a "not imposing religious views on others", which kind of dodges the issue (especially if you aren't also bringing up Pence's Burn The Gays policies).
Overall, I think the problem with the overly rehearsed nature of Kaine's remarks is it weirdly made Trump's awful comments and actions come across as less serious. Like I'm someone who hates Trump, especially for his bigotry and hate accusations of political correctness, but Kaine made those critiques come across as Political Correctness Gone Mad.
edited 4th Oct '16 8:11:57 PM by Hodor2
Pence: That's nonsense. We do not run an insult-driven campaign.
edited 4th Oct '16 8:11:32 PM by LogoP
It is sometimes an appropriate response to reality to go insane.@Gilphon: I'm not so sure about that; media generally cycles between beating up one candidate or the other during a Presidential campaign, and the VP debate may very well mark one such "turning point" where Clinton starts getting roasted for the next few news cycles. That's contingent on Trump not making a scene at the second debate of course.
edited 4th Oct '16 8:13:22 PM by CaptainCapsase
I firmly disagree that Congress has any business banning partial-birth abortions - it's a law passed by pro-lifers in an attempt to step in and tell the medical community what to do, backed by a majority of the population that are not doctors. (Note that the term itself is not used by the medical community - it's solely a political term.)
Essentially, the ban requires abortion providers to use other methods that are often less medically safe, such as poisoning the fetus before extracting it - that alone should tell you that you're dealing with a law written by people who don't know what they're talking about.

Great job moderator. Your questions really hit on the fact that Pence is a raging homophobe and that he hates all LGBTQ peeps.
Awesome job there.