‘The American people really deserve an answer’ – Pence claims victory over Harris’s faux sincerity

“Pence was the clear winner of this debate, his reassuring command of the stage taking victory over Harris’s faux sincerity.”

Photograph: Mike Pence speaking with supporters at a campaign rally, 2016. By Gage Skidmore on Flickr.

Last night’s debate was hoped to be a welcome reprieve from the disappointing clash of President Trump and ex-Vice President Biden last week; our hopes were answered.

Despite Senator Harris’s much better showing than Biden’s feeble display in the first debate, it was Vice President Pence who claims victory in this electoral outing, at once marking himself as more presidential than his opposite number as well as the president under whom he himself serves.

On the subject of packing the Supreme Court in the event of a Joe Biden presidency, the Vice President’s determined refusal to allow his opponent to avoid answering left Harris smiling. Not smiling in victory, mind you, but in that unconscious way that all politicians smile when they wish to lie to the electorate but can’t get away with it.

The Senator knew the answer to moderator Susan Page’s question, she just couldn’t admit it; the Biden-Harris ticket fully intends to pack the Supreme Court in the event of their victory, despite the linguistic gymnastics they may engage in to avoid saying so.

Even in areas where one might expect Harris to outperform Pence, such as when discussing the government’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, the Senator’s blows missed their mark, and indeed exposed the Biden campaign’s own weaknesses. Pointing to Trump’s early banning of travel from China and Biden’s condemnation of it on the grounds of xenophobia, Pence simultaneously reaffirmed his and Trump’s willingness to do what is necessary to defeat the virus and exposed the inability of Biden to do the same, being paralysed by the pursuit of ‘wokeness’ over reality. Senator Harris’s failure to pin the Vice President down on this as well as the economy is surely a disappointment to Democrats in Washington, who will be banking on these issues to sway voters in November.

Keen to not repeat the mistakes of last week, wherein Biden’s passivity enabled Trump to derail him, Senator Harris was quick on to draw upon any interruption. Overly so, as the Senator’s wide-eyed staring and sharp grin at even the slightest intrusion from her opponent appeared over compensatory and off-putting, without the assertiveness which I am sure she intended to project.

The Vice President, in stark contrast to the President, remained calm and collected throughout; however, his assault on the Biden-Harris platform, from its plans to reverse the Trump tax cuts to its use of the Green New Deal as a framework for its energy policy, was just as uncompromising.

An honourable mention must be given to Susan Page, whose moderation proved far more balanced than that of Chris Wallace’s last week. With some exceptions: namely her first question, to Senator Harris, stating that coronavirus was not under control, which assumed too much; while it may seem obvious to some viewers at home, whether or not coronavirus is under control is for the candidates to debate, as it is in effect a judgment on the government’s handling of the pandemic.

While Pence was the clear winner of this debate, his reassuring command of the stage taking victory over Harris’s faux sincerity, today’s headlines will no doubt distract from this fact, likely focusing on the fly that briefly sat upon the Vice President’s head rather than the debate itself.

As the only Vice Presidential debate of 2020, we can expect the next debates to be downhill from here.