My initial reaction was that Pence won and did better than Kaine. But the closer I looked at the transcript, the more I thought Kaine did better than we thought and Pence did worse. Pence still won, I think. If Hillary won her debate by KO, then Pence won this one on a split decision by the three judges.
Numbers
The worst thing Tim Kaine did all night was interrupt. I talked about this last time with Trump, but it is just as true for Kaine: Often when you feel like you're losing, you have to interject. Most counts put the interruptions near about 70 for Kaine and about 40 for Pence, but I did my own count. My gut reaction was that Kaine interrupted roughly twice as much. But looking at the transcript, it was closer, with 92 interruptions by Kaine and 72 interruptions for Pence. Now, I'm probably counting a little high there, because I am counting a lot of back-and-forth talk as interruptions. The format was less traditional than the Trump-Clinton debate, and meant to encourage discussion rather than strict time limits. In fact, moderator Elaine Quijano gave both the green light for interrupting early on. Trump interrupted more by a 3:1 margin. Kaine interrupted more than Pence, but not quite by a 2:1 margin.
I also talked last time about speaking time, and all the counts I found put Pence at talking for about 3 minutes more than Kaine. I definitely felt the time difference with Trump, but didn't necessarily feel that way with Pence.
Let's talk about strength. I picked up about halfway through that was Pence's go-to word. And the numbers bear it out: He said strength/strong/strengthen three times as often as Kaine. When you include his contrast word, weak (always used to describe Obama foreign policy), he used strength/strong/strengthen/weak 39 times. Kaine used those words 11 times.
Reactions
I didn't hear much complaining about the moderators or microphones or what have you from either side. It's not like the blame game that happened after the first presidential debate.
Facts
Here are some links: CNN. Washington Post.
Politifact rated 32 claims: 18 by Kaine, and 13 were true/mostly true. 1 was mostly false/false. Pence had 11 claims, with 4 mostly true/true and 5 mostly false/false. Another 3 claims fall into the eye of the beholder (Trump didn't know if Russia invaded Crimea, a trio of claims by Pence about Hillary's immigration views where two were false and one was true, and whether Putin persecutes journalists).
Breakdown
Pence was more comfortable, I thought, which made him appear to win the debate. He's a former talk radio host, and he came across as calm and pretty good at saying what he wants to say — it rarely felt like he was rushing and that made him look like he was in control. He often tried to turn the tables onto Clinton rather than answer tough questions. It was when you actually pay attention to what he said that he doesn't come across well.
(Quick aside: There were several times in looking at the transcript that the moderator was trying to stop Pence, but he'd barrel through anyway and talk for another paragraph. This may have led to some interruptions on Kaine's part, but the public doesn't know that — that might be helpful in future debates. If there's something as clear as a light or bell or something, that helps us decide if one person is over his time, or if the other is interrupting his time.)
I think CNN commentator Gloria Berger hit the nail on the head about Mike Pence: "He was better at attacking Clinton than defending Trump." When asked early why voters don't like Trump, Pence spoke all but two sentences about Clinton. When Kaine gives a detailed answer about fighting terrorism and dares Pence to defend several dangerous Trump claims, Pence spends the entire time talking about Obama/Clinton failures rather than defend the Trump claims. He denied that Trump said he'd punish women who had abortions (he did, but later pulled back from it), while attacking Hillary for supporting partial birth abortions (she's on the record against those).
There were a couple of policy inventions by Pence that didn't sound like Trump or were seemingly at odds with what he's said: Calling for "full and complete and transparent investigations" is not a position Trump has made, and safe zones in Syria is definitely not a Trump policy. He also talked tough about Putin, which is contrary to many Trump statements about working with Putin.
Kaine was guilty of interrupting, and that's a bad sin. Even if you're right (and we'll get to that in a minute), it comes across as rude. There were many times when the moderator was trying to steer Pence back to defending a Trump position or actually answering the question, and Kaine jumped in instead. He should have let Pence answer the questions directly. Some of Kaine's answers (You're Trump's apprentice, can't tell the difference...) were canned and he seemed overeager to make his points. When given the chance to do so, he spoke fairly well and made good points. But he was so ready to make them that he pounced all over Pence.
But what hurt Kaine the most is that even when he's right, he either interrupted or let Pence off the hook. Kaine's first interruption is to say that Pence/Trump praise Putin. He's right, but he interrupted the moderator, who was trying to get Pence to actually answer the question instead of attacking Clinton. In one exchange, Kaine makes a good point — you won't defend your own voting record — but he comes off as rude because he's interrupting. When Kaine does get a chance to speak, he often quoted Donald Trump — this is what your candidate said. His lines are effective when he talks, but he's so eager to give them that he talks over Pence. Kaine gave one of the best defenses of the Clinton Foundation I've heard this campaign season, and contrasted that with the Trump Foundation effectively, while every Pence claim was false about the Clinton Foundation's work.
Here's the debate in a nutshell: Pence is asked what he'd say to Republican Sen. Tim Scott, who testified on the Senate floor that he is stopped frequently because he is black. Pence gives a long answer and Kaine feels it's his turn -- he starts to interrupt. But the moderator never got the answer to her question, and presses Pence again. Pence then supports stop-and-frisk, which was a) ineffective b) ruled unconstitutional and c) probably not the thing you want to say to Scott: effectively that you'll be stopped and frisked more often. But at the end of Pence's answer, Kaine wants his turn and tries to jump in, but Quijano again says to Pence that this is about what he'd tell Sen. Scott. But Kaine is so itching to answer that he just takes the question. The moderator has asked Pence to answer the question three times — he doesn't have a good answer. But Kaine jumping in and stealing the question lets Pence off the hook. What Kaine says is important and a good point: This is about respect, and Donald Trump has shown he has no respect for [laundry list of insults here]. He basically dares Pence to defend it. But what he's done is interrupted, let Pence off the hook on responding to an actual black person affected by such issues, and changed the subject.
But by Thursday morning, none of the major websites (CNN, NBC, Fox) had VP debate news stories on their front page. It's already old news. And with another debate coming on Sunday between Trump and Clinton, I just don't think this one will have much impact. That one is a town hall debate, which I think is better for Trump than the last format. Trump feeds off (positive) energy from crowds, and I think seeing them and playing off them is better for him. We will see on Sunday.
Other notes
• Pence praised the school hosting the debate as Norwood University. The school is Longwood University.
• Pence talked about a war on coal, but Obama's policies aren't hurting coal — it's the rise of natural gas as a cheaper, cleaner energy source that is hurting coal.
• One of the proposals by Kaine on the economy is investing in manufacturing. Manufacturing jobs are falling because of technology and not because of outsourcing. That said, his proposals were far more detailed than Pence's.
• Pence brings up the Russian invasion of Ukraine as a failure of Clinton. That was under John Kerry's watch.
• Kaine said he challenged Pence six times to defend his running mate, and he can't, while asking everyone to vote for someone he can't defend was his most powerful line. I looked up the six times. Four of the times Pence either had no defense or said something like "Clinton/Obama was just as bad." Once Pence denied Trump said that (he did, though.). And the other was a weird comment about how black cops can't be biased against other black people. Kaine was, for the most part, right. Much later in the debate, Pence did try to defend one of those things, but got the quote wrong.
• Kaine was wrong about who said Trump has dealings with Russian businessmen — that was Trump's son, not Trump himself. But later in the debate, he makes the same point twice and gets his source right both times.
• Kaine was asked about North Korea, and gives a long answer. Oddly, Pence is not asked the same question.
• There was a good question about when they had a faith/public policy struggle. Kaine gives a detailed, nuanced answer about the death penalty. Pence uses the question as a platform to talk about all the steps he's taken against abortion. Didn't seem like a struggle.
• The abortion question was the most honest discussion of the Democrat-Republican divide I've seen. It was good. For Republicans, abortion is always wrong, period. For Democrats like Kaine, they may personally abhor it, but they don't feel that they should impose that belief on nonbelievers. You don't hear this type of view on a national stage often.
• There were several moments of respectfulness between the two, and I liked that. More of that, please.
• I liked that Pence was pro-adoption, but I don't think you'll find many who are against adoption.
• Kaine mentions the $64,000 question. That is a reference to a show that went off the air the same year Tim Kaine and my parents were born.
Election Update
Presidential
BIG CHANGES. The debate has changed a lot. Nevada looked like it was leaning Trump before the debate. But there have been four decent polls since then, and one had a tie while three gave a lead for Clinton (1-point lead, 3-point lead and 6-point lead). I'm going to move it blue for now, but it's probably closer to toss-up. Ohio's had three polls since the debate. Two for Clinton, one for Trump. It moves to Toss-Up. I'm moving Florida slightly blue. There have been six polls since the debate: one showed a tie, one had a one-point Trump lead, and the other four showed Clinton leads of 2-5 points. That seems a trend to me. More polling shows that Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire are unlikely Trump wins. He hasn't led a poll in any of those states since the RNC. Remember how Colorado nearly went to Toss-Up? Forget it. Three polls since the debate show a nearly double-digit Clinton lead. Five polls of North Carolina since the debate, and five leads for Clinton. Also, a couple polls of Maine's second district have it going each direction, so I'm moving it back to toss-up. Nevada moves blue. Florida moves blue. North Carolina moves blue. Ohio moves to Toss-Up. Toss-Up States: Ohio, Maine's 2nd district. States to Watch: Ohio, Nevada, Florida, North Carolina. Electoral College: 322 Clinton, 197 Trump, 270 to win
Senate
I think for sure the Democrats pick up three seats (WI, IL, IN) and likely lose one (NV, though that's a real tough call). That's +2. They need two more to swing to win back the Senate if they win the White House. Their best bets are North Carolina, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and Missouri. Two more polls of New Hampshire show a 2 and 3-point lead for the Democrat while another shows a 6-point lead for the Republican. So... No Clue. The last three polls of Pennsylvania show a 3-5 point lead for Democratic challenger Kelly McGinty over incumbent GOP Sen. Pat Toomey, but one other poll has a decent Toomey lead. I'm going to go ahead and give Democrats the seat for now, because of the trend, but it may move back to No Clue with more polling. North Carolina is too close to call. The Cook Political Report just moved the Missouri Senate race into their Toss-Up category. I already had it there. But there is surprisingly little poll data to use in Missouri. Pennsylvania moves blue. No Clue: New Hampshire, North Carolina, Missouri. +3 Democrat, not enough for a majority.
Summary Judgments
I wonder if this weekend's Presidential Debate might get overshadowed by Hurricane Matthew. It's a reminder that there are bigger things to worry about than Trump-Clinton. • • • My race is on Sunday. I've prepared for the 5K part, and think I'm ready. I have not prepared at all for the subsequent +3K part. That'll be an adventure. • • • Evie is going to be our future nurse. She's really sweet whenever Roland gets hurt. He got stung by a bee at daycare, and she sat next to him and said "Iss OK. Iss OK." Then today, they got flu shots and she went first. After she got a Band-Aid, Roland got his shot, and she did the same thing. She's very nurturing when Roland or anyone is hurting.
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