Last night's debate
I missed last night's debate since i was busy watching the Jays game. But i did catch the post-debate shows and some of the highlights. From all accounts, it was a very close debate, with Mike Pence of Indiana slightly edging future Vice-President Tim Kaine, whose biggest fault last night seemed to be pulling a Donald Trump and constantly interrupting Pence.
So earlier today i decided to watch the debate in its entirety. Let's face it, these two aren't exactly the most entertaining souls on the planet. They could probably put the worst insomniac to sleep. I watched the debate twice. I watched about an hour of it with the volume turned down and watched their faces and reactions. The reason i did this is that i learned years ago that just watching facial expressions can often tell you the debate's outcome. Back in 1960 when the first ever Presidential debate was had, people listening to the debate on the radio were certain Richard Nixon had won the debate. However, people who watched it on tv were certain that JFK won it. Nixon didn't look at all on tv during the debate.
Watching last night's debate with the volume turned down appeared to me like Tim Kaine had easily won the debate. But i knew fully well that the post-debate shows and the morning shows claimed that polls had shown a slight win by Pence. But it struck me as strange last night that live polls among undecided voters clearly gave the victory to Tim Kaine. How could this be? Could they be so wrong?
So just a few hours ago, i watched the debate for the second time with the volume turned on. To my great surprise, Tim Kaine did a lot better than i had expected!! And i totally got the criticism towards Pence that he didn't do anything to defend Donald Trump. It indeed seemed like Mike Pence was running for his potential candidacy in 2020 last night. He let Tim Kaine attack Donald Trump's character and past behaviour over and over without rebuttal! Instead of defending Trump or attacking Kaine, he mostly spent his time exaggerating and lying about Clinton and Obama. I also noticed that every time Tim Kaine attacked either him or Trump on something they had said in the past, Pence would simply shake his head in disapproval with a smirk. Following the debate, fact-checkers indicated that Tim Kaine had been correct on most of these attacks and strangely enough, Mike Pence had been shaking his head from left to right every time!
Therefore, after watching the debate twice today, i have no choice but to give a slight edge to the future Vice-President of the United States, Tim Kaine. I was extremely impressed by his performance and i totally understand why he had to interrupt Pence so many times in order to protect his running mate. The biggest criticism against Pence is that he barely defended the attacks against Trump. What last night showed was that Tim Kaine can also be used as an attack dog, very similar to how effective Joe Bidden has been used by the President.
But let's face it: nothing will change after last night's debate. Most of the watchers admitted no matter how the debate went, it wasn't enough to sway them. A few did say that last night's debate helped them make up their mind about who to vote for, and my feeling is that Kaine surprised them with his performance and knowing of facts, which will be good for the Clinton team. Mike Pence didn't surprise many. He was his old same boring self last night, and his past experience doing radio somewhat paid off. Would he be a better candidate than Trump were he at the top of the ticket? Much, much better. And that's the problem: the wrong guy is running. Actually, Jeb Bush should be running instead for the Republicans and he'd likely win the Presidency. I say the same thing about Joe Bidden. Had his favorite son not died from cancer a couple of years ago, Bidden would very likely be running and very likely could have been the next POTUS.
I can't wait for Sunday evening when the world's biggest fraud and con man puts the final nail in his own coffin in his town hall debate. He'll be crushed not only by the Clinton machine, but by the people in the audience asking him questions. I hope they get an overweight woman to question him about his past statements in regards to women. That'll be priceless! :lol:
p.s. Note that a few Trump campaign insiders anonymously told a few media confidantes this morning that Trump was furious with Pence during and after the debate for never defending him and strictly looking out for himself.