Delaware Liberal

Open Thread for Wednesday, October 5, 2016

Delaware Dem

PRESIDENT
NATIONAL–Ipsos–CLINTON 42, Trump 36
NORTH CAROLINA–Elon–CLINTON 45, Trump 39
NORTH CAROLINA–SurveyUSA–CLINTON 46, Trump 44
NEVADA–UNLV/Hart Research–CLINTON 44, Trump 41
PENNSYLVANIA–Monmouth–CLINTON 50, Trump 40
TENNESSEE–Middle Tn. State. Univ.–TRUMP 50, Trump 38
ILLINOIS–The Simon Poll/SIU–CLINTON 53, Trump 28

A new CNN/ORC poll finds that 48% of those who watched the vice presidential debate thought Gov. Mike Pence performed better while 42% said they thought Sen. Tim Kaine won. Which is fine. Kaine did what he needed to do, which was attack Trump and make Pence defend him, which Pence didn’t, which did not please you know who. More on that below….

Dan Balz: “Overall it was an unsatisfying, disjointed debate, as the two candidates brushed past specific questions to open up other arguments at will. It probably changed few minds and no doubt brought some encouragement to the bases of the two parties. In that way it was a typical vice-presidential debate.”

Jonathan Chait: “Pence provided an evening of escapist fantasy for conservative intellectuals who like to close their eyes and imagine their party has nominated a qualified, normal person for president. It is hard to see how he helped the cause of electing the actual nominee.”

Robert Costa: “It was a dutiful, deflective and prepared performance for a campaign that rarely fits that description. Instead of causing Trump or his aides campaign-changing headaches, Pence played it safe and, when he could, sought to reassure the movement conservatives he knows well and who have been wary of Trump’s murky populism. Beneath the smooth patter, however, there were significant cracks with Trump — especially with regard to Russia and its role in the war in Syria — that showcased how far Pence’s instincts stray from Trump’s.”

Glenn Thrush: “The Virginia senator has a reputation for being a nice guy, but he was given a hit man’s job on Tuesday. And the target was Trump, not Pence, whom the Clinton campaign regards as a political bit player who will vanish into obscurity after the election. Hence, Kaine’s task was a slightly awkward one: to aim over Pence and hit Trump. It didn’t really work, and not for lack of trying.”

Andrew Sullivan: “As for Kaine, I don’t think he appeared presidential; he failed to defend the past eight years clearly and aggressively enough; he did nothing to rouse the Obama coalition. He seemed like a classic politician. He was strong on abortion at the end, and on his faith. He seems like a hugely decent guy – but he missed a few moments to really expose Trump’s extremism the way he needed to.”

Taegan Goddard:

Pence had a much tougher job at the outset. After Donald Trump’s disastrous debate performance last week, Pence needed to do something to reverse the momentum. He didn’t do it. Aside from brushing aside what Trump has said, it’s not clear what his strategy was. On some issues, like Russia and Syria, Pence actually disagreed with Trump. All Kaine needed to do was make the debate about Donald Trump but he couldn’t do it either. He came off as nervous and overly rehearsed. He didn’t effectively call out Pence for denying basic facts about Trump. If you scored the debate on style, Pence probably won narrowly. He looked into the camera and came off as the calmer of the two. I suspect most instant polls will find Pence the winner. However, Kaine was a much better running mate. He defended the nominee at the top of his ticket. Pence wasn’t willing to do it.

After watching the debate, it’s clear that Kaine is running for vice president in 2016. But Pence sounded more like he’s running for president in 2020.

Libertarian vice presidential candidate William Weld told the Boston Globe “that he plans to focus exclusively on blasting Donald Trump over the next five weeks, a strategic pivot aimed at denying Trump the White House and giving himself a key role in helping to rebuild the GOP.”

“Weld’s comments in a Globe interview mark a major shift in his mission since he pledged at the Libertarian convention in May that he would remain a Libertarian for life and would do all he could to help elect his running mate, Gary Johnson, the former Republican governor of New Mexico.”

Ezra Klein tweeted “It sort of works in the debate, but Pence shaking head, saying “no he hasn’t” is going to look bad in ads next to Trump saying those things.”

Jamelle Bouie nailed it at Slate.com with a two-sentence summation: “Whether Kaine or Pence was polished and polite matters less than whether they gave a fair and good-faith accounting of themselves and their politics to the public. And by that standard, Mike Pence was a clear and abysmal failure.”

Tehama Lopez Bunyasi, an Assistant Professor in the School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University, explained at an NBC News Latino panel: “A vice presidential candidate should be able to defend the person at the top of the ticket. Kaine not only defended Clinton, he made a thoughtful case for her. But, when Kaine asked Pence to defend the litany of offensive statements Trump has made about Mexicans, women, Senator John McCain, Indiana-born judge Gonzalo Curiel, President Barack Obama, and the African American community, Pence simply didn’t, and it is on this point where he most clearly ‘struck out

Josh Marshall:

Kaine himself didn’t always come off as well as I might have expected. But he did great for his running mate, sometimes by defending her in ways that are difficult for her to do herself but far more often by reading out crate loads of opposition research on Trump and simply reminding people of all the stuff he’s said. How many times did he say Trump’s sons say they get a lot of their money from Russia? At least twice, maybe three times. Pence, on the other hand, came off fairly well in the Kaine v Pence debate. He probably helped himself a decent amount for 2020, though for reasons I’ll discuss at any time I doubt that will ever happen for him. But he left his running mate all but undefended. In some cases, maybe most cases, Pence was simply hard pressed to defend things that were simply indefensible. But, as I’ve said, he didn’t seem to have his heart in it. He tossed out some obligatory denials, shook his head wearily and that was about it.

People don’t vote for vice presidential candidates. Especially in this campaign, with two presidential candidates whose public personas loom so large over the political nation, the veeps barely hold any of the spotlight. This is about Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Kaine landed lots of punches on Donald Trump, while Pence left Trump largely undefended. Pence got in very few hits on Clinton, but not many. Whether Pence made a tacit decision to abandon his boss or simply wasn’t up to the challenge I don’t know. But the net effect was that he let Kaine land punch after punch on Trump, largely undefended. That’s really all that matters.

Ron Brownstein says Clinton and Trump are Shuffling the Electoral Map:

This reconfiguration largely leaves the same states at the center of the electoral deck, but shuffles which party looks to which state for a win. It’s a shift symbolized by Clinton’s clear decision to focus more effort on Florida and even North Carolina than on Ohio, the state traditionally considering the tipping point in presidential elections. (Clinton finally returned to Ohio Monday after nearly a month-long absence.)

“While the same ten states are in play by and large that we had in 2012 they have definitely been reordered,” said Mitch Stewart, President Obama’s 2012 field director and a founding partner of the Democratic consulting firm 270 Strategies…

That new geographic pattern is rooted in the race’s defining demographic trends. In the six major national polls released just before last week’s first presidential debate, Trump led among white voters without a college education by resounding margins of 20 to 32 percentage points. But he confronted deficits of 40-50 points among non-white voters, and was facing more resistance than any previous Republican nominee in the history of modern polling among college-educated whites: five of the six surveys showed him trailing among them by margins of two-to-eleven percentage points (while he managed only to run even in the sixth.) The race is on track to produce the widest gap ever between the preferences of college-and non-college whites, while Trump may reach record lows among voters of color.

Exit mobile version