VP Debate Afterthoughts: What About K-12 and Childcare?
Harris definitely won - but, both candidates failed at climate issues and said nothing about the nation's alarming education and childcare crisis
Publisher’s Riff
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Some elements of Wednesday evening’s Vice Presidential debate that stood out to offer food for thought:
The overall debate had tons more substance than last week’s non-debate debacle between the presidential candidates. We finally got a good glimpse at the respective campaign platforms and policy ideas, whether you agreed with either or not.
Sen. Kamala Harris definitely won the debate. This was, in my humble opinion, her best debate performance of the entire 2020 presidential campaign season. For the most part, I was never a major fan of her Democratic presidential primary performances: she had the ability to throw punches, but she was not as prepared for the counter punches. Yesterday evening showed a much sharper, more polished and more debate-prepped Harris than before.
Vice President Mike Pence was, and perhaps deliberately, low energy. There’s a sense that maybe he’s not really all that into this (at least that’s what some of us saw last night). Pence’s evasiveness was not only much higher than Harris’ (because, real talk, all candidates dodge questions), but he answered questions on key topics - like the pandemic - as if the rest of us don’t watch the news or don’t know what’s going on. In short, Pence actively insulted everyone’s intelligence … even the fly could smell it.
Here’s polling proof that Harris won the debate. Here are first-impression first results of CNN’s Instant Poll shows
Here’s FiveThirtyEight’s analysis …
There was a moment where Pence outrageously said: “this is a classic case of if you can’t win by the rules you’re going to change the rules.” This was part of his argument that Democrats were proposing to “stack the Court” by pressing for more seats on the Supreme Court. At that exact moment, Harris missed a major opportunity to have immediately asked the Vice President if he was then going to denounce the rampant examples of voter suppression being carried out in multiple states by his Republican colleagues - and then call him out for his own actions as Governor of Indiana in 2016 when he ordered state police to raid the offices of a voter registration project. Republicans, including Pence, have completely forfeited their right to claim they are following rules when they are engaged in “classic” wholesale electoral cheating.
Harris was extremely deliberate and very effective in calling the Affordable Care Act what it is: the Affordable Care Act. This led the moderator, Susan Page, to acknowledge it as the same and maintain that reference. It was in very important contrast to the few times Pence was able to insert the reference “Obamacare.” The rhetorical distinction here is crucial: the term “Obamacare” was created by Republican messaging experts as a slander. Since then, it has been used quite effectively by Republicans to distort the Affordable Care Act … because many White voters and Republicans actually believe that Obamacare is a separate thing that they don’t like - even as many of them rely heavily on the ACA.
Notice: Harris didn’t emphasize her Blackness much - if at all - and she didn’t really talk much about Black people. This was probably intentional and was done for obvious reasons, namely to make sure she’s able to maintain some appeal with White voters who may still be having trouble convincing themselves they want a Black woman Vice President. There was an interesting moment in that debate where she described George Floyd as “an American man” versus the usual reference of Floyd as a “Black man.” That was intentional and, for better or for worse, it was framed that way in an effort to project a theme of racial unity.
Both candidates failed miserably on the issue of climate change. That was a cringe moment: Pence actually dominated the discussion even as he peddled anti-science. Harris did not counter it or shut it down effectively when she could have. Pence comfortably pushed ahead as a low-key climate denier, arriving just short of calling it a “hoax” as his boss has. Perhaps out of fear she’d appear too left of center on this topic, Harris stayed on the defensive busily distancing herself from things like the Green New Deal and questions about fracking. What’s wrong with achieving an ultimate goal of eliminating fossil fuels and banning fracking? All Biden-Harris have to say is that they simply want to gradually convert the economy towards cleaner, safer energy so we save the planet. Harris, like Biden last week, stumbled on this … even as her state burns from historic wildfires.
The question on Breonna Taylor was a major moment showing clear contrast between Biden-Harris and Trump-Pence on the topic of racial justice. Harris was very able in this point of the debate, but she didn’t counter back as hard when Pence attempted to press her into a corner about her previous work as a prosecutor.
And, finally, the biggest disappointment of the evening: neither candidate said anything about the K-12 education crisis unfolding, as well as the child care crisis. This was the same case last week during the presidential debate. Millions of children are now falling behind in their academic development as pandemic ensues, and child care centers are rapidly closing down. The kids aren’t being taken care of. Neither of these campaigns, and the Debate Commission, feels the need to address this. That’s tragic.
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