While I personally am frustrated with how Walz was prepped, it is possible that, given what they had to work with, the style adopted made the best possible use of his debate talents (which are modest). Hopefully we’ll argue over Walz’s debate style again 4 years from now at the next VP debate.
These match my own. Vance was slick but completely without substance. Walz stumbled at times but every time they drilled down into an issue past the talking points he scored. And it remains to be seen if the 2020 election non-answer ends up being that gaffe.
“But I’m not the audience for this stuff” is something I wish panicky democrats and pundits would internalize. The target audience is the least curious, most tuned out, most cynical, least informed voters in a handful of swing states.
Vance had more to gain and Walz more to lose at this stage, but the stakes overall were very, very low. A "tie" does nothing to upset the fundamentals of where the race is now, and that's a worse problem for Trump.
Comments
Presentation and style seem to be the main two factors?
Not much written there on actual policy and truthfulness.
Kinda surprised no mention of JD aggressively yelling over the moderators repeatedly at one point until they gave in