I hadn’t thought about it much lately but after last night it hit home that we haven’t been seeing or hearing much from VP candidate Tim Walz lately. Or Kamala Harris for that matter. However in the post debate analysis I watched on MSNBC Jenn Psaki cut right to the chase. Tim Walz’s strength for the Harris campaign is him getting out there and being… well, Tim Walz. Psaki thinks they’ve kept Walz under wraps too much lately and expressed the hope they will turn him loose to do what he does best. She noted that yes, he’ll sometimes make a gaffe but the way he connects with voters AND generates media coverage that’s positive for Democrats is more than worth it. So, as the title says it’s time to put Walz out there. Every day and in as many places as possible.
Let’s go back to last night and the debate which prompted Psaki’s argument. Watching, while yelling at my TV about Vance’s continual lies and wishing Walz would rhetorically punch Vance in the mouth and cut him off at the knees I felt like I’d been transported back in time. A more civilized time when people in these things would make a genuine effort to be civil instead of the Trumpian crap we’ve (sadly) gotten used to. Walz has run for office far more often than Vance and has been at a podium for a debate BUT it’s not his strength. Still, he could be expected to acquit himself well and he did. Vance lied his ass off but because he knew moderators were going to let him get away with it the Yale Law School grad played the slick (albeit one defending a despicable client) lawyer pretty damned well.
Accounts about who “won” seem to suggest Vance actually had the edge. Again, he LIED his ass off but unlike Trump he (Vance) can string together coherent sentences. That, given the absence of the kind of fact checking his boss got sometimes (not often enough) during the Presidential debate on ABC gave Vance the chance to sound what to those who aren’t political junkies reasonable. Walz was placed in the same uncomfortable position many others in many debates for decades have found themselves in: Do they waste their own precious speaking time fact checking/debunking the LIES or do they focus on presenting their own answers and vision? It’s almost a no-win situation.
So the post debate coverage is generally along the lines of Vance having “won.” This article from the BBC is a good representation of it all. I watched the whole thing live like I always do with all of these things. I felt like it was a draw. Like most of the pundits I thought Walz came on stronger as the debate went on. However, the answer to a question I posed in an article here yesterday was answered fairly early. Walz wasn’t sent in there to slap Vance around. No, his marching orders were a political version of what medical school graduates are often told to say before reciting the actual Hippocratic Oath – ‘First, do no harm.’
Walz did do some fact checking of Vance and at times put him on the spot. What remains to be seen is how today and in the coming days TV outlets will play it. Will they show mostly how Walz exposed Vance’s lies on certain things, AND Vance’s avoiding answering questions? Or will they instead, in their desire for a ‘horse race’ and the ratings (revenue!) play up the ‘Vance beat Walz’ routine? I’m betting on the latter.
THAT my friends is why Harris and her team need to get Walz out there as often as possible starting right freaking now. With new marching orders. As in ‘Take off the gloves Tim and pummel Vance like a punching bag until the air/stuffing is knocked out of him.’ Have Walz out on the stump pointing out various Vance LIES and telling the TRUTH on him! Vance (and Trump) will whine and complain. So what? They are going to do so anyway so give them something to whine about.
Start with Vance last night right there during the debate WHINING about one of the moderators ‘sort of’ fact checking him. Crybaby Vance complained that wasn’t supposed to happen. Too bad they didn’t have a moderator close to retirement age to shoot right back with something like ‘Excuse me? You’re COMPLAINING about not getting to spend and hour and a half lying to the American people anytime you want? AFTER appearing on camera on another network saying if you have to make up things then you’ll do so? Is THAT what you’re whining about?’ Don’t expect either moderator or anyone at CBS to do any such cleanup today. However, even though he’s no longer with them Dan Rather is still out there and his name/reputation is synonymous with CBS. I hope Rather will speak out and forcefully. Call out his former colleagues.
I’ll be disappointed as hell if there isn’t a commercial cut and out today about Vance’s complaining over being ‘fact checked’ with both Harris and Walz saying their names and together saying “And we approved this ad!” Also, as I’ve said Walz himself (and Harris too) need to be out there on the stump. Lead off with this, and then go into Vance’s other, longer litany of lies about what he and Trump intend to do if elected. Walz should be told to just be himself. The guy people so quickly came to admire. The neighbor, teacher, coach and soldier others felt lucky to know. Walz’s authenticity comes through when he’s out there just talking to voters, both in small groups and large ones!
Kamala Harris is a next level star and doesn’t need to worry for one second about Walz outshining her. Nor does she have to worry about his having designs on her job should she become President. Harris picked Walz for a reason. And he added something invaluable to the campaign. It’s time the campaign remembers that and returns to the “Let Walz be Walz’ strategy. Especially with Harris suddenly having to be part of working with President Biden on disaster relief here at home and the mess going on in the middle east.
Like nature, Politics abhors a vacuum and given the choice between allowing Vance/Trump to fill it or getting Walz back out there as often as possible I think Jenn Psaki has it exactly right. They’ve made a mistake by keeping Walz somewhat sidelined but they can fix that in a hurry. And they damn well should!
To those “accountants” out there calculating hillbilly boy won the debate I have this to say to them: once someone lies it indicates they either do not know something (are ignorant) or do not want facts to exist-they are trying to hide the truth. In auditing, when someone lies on their financial statements (does not provide factual data), that person/corporation/organization FAILS the audit. I shudder to think that these “accountants” might also be auditors but unfortunately there are whores in every profession including accounting (as don-old’s financial statements can attest). Point is, when hillbilly boy stooped to lying, at that point he lost the debate.
Not sure he had to stoop to lie, Spike: he came prepared and ready to lie standing up all night long, and he did. But he’s enough of a smoothie that he’d sound reasonable to people who don’t know otherwise, who don’t immerse themselves in political facts as we tend to. That’s his job: make Trump’s lies and incoherent rants into palatable-sounding pap for the semi-informed. He did that on the night, partly because CBS didn’t have the cojones to fact-check him. Walz did pretty well dodging the fact-check trap, didn’t get bogged down in refuting the torrent, and got a lot of solid policies aired. And at the end, he nailed Vance on the Big Lie.
He’s there to make all the lies seem ‘truthy’.
Doug Emhoff swung through Texas last week. Making stops in San Antonio and Austin, raised money, led big rallys. Doug Emhoff, the first gentleman. That is the least Texas gets even with a tight race for senator for cancun cruz and NFL Linebacker Colin Allred.
Even trump stuck his head out to fundraise in Texas. I guess the only reason either party campaigns in Texas is hoover up funds. BTW Tilman Ferttita the head of landray’s seafood and other properties headed up the fundraising campaign. I won’t be back there anytime soon.
Walz should come to Texas, football country, He would get some great crowds in Dallas, Houston, Austin and San Antonio.