Debatus Interruptus: Pence Prevails in VP Debate

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence won last night’s debate going away, quietly proving that Donald Trump knows how to pick good people.  Mike Pence was the statesman, elegantly weathering both the wearisome Democratic Vice-Presidential candidate Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, as well as the utterly inept moderator who quickly slipped Kaine’s lead and actively participated to divert Pence from making points cutting Pence’s answers short.  It was frustrating to watch and an embarrassment for our country and for media.

Constantly interrupting for effect to throw Pence off, Kaine relentlessly injected Trump’s taxes and nonsensical half-truths in an attempt to capture the media’s morning after sound-bite-du-jour award.  In that, he failed; however, Tim Kaine’s performance did accomplish two things:  he made Hillary Clinton look like a nice person by comparison and confirmed Hillary Clinton’s incompetence in choosing a running mate.

Mike Pence delivered the best zinger of the night.   In response to Tim Kaine’s hyperbolic invocation of Ronald Reagan to call Donald Trump the maniac who could trigger a catastrophic nuclear event, Pence quipped  “That was even beneath even you and Hillary, and that’s pretty low.”   Video below:

Kaine interrupted the GOP Vice-Presidential candidate over 70 times.  Like some rabid chihuahua attack dog, Kaine did his job, relentlessly interrupting Pence throughout the hour and half long debate, attempting to distract from Pence’s points on the issues of Benghazi, immigration, social security, jobs, and partial birth abortion.  And that was probably the Kaine objective — shut down the debate, distract and interrupt viewers’ attention from the issues by preventing any articulation of conservative, Republican policy.

The GOP released a 4:30 minute video counting all 72 of Tim Kaine’s interruptions:

The Washington Post summarized the VP Debate Winners and Losers:

* Mike Pence: From the very beginning, Pence was the more comfortable of the two men on the debate stage. Pence repeatedly turned to the camera when he answered questions, making clear he understood that the real audience wasn’t in the room but watching on TV. The Indiana governor was calm, cool and collected throughout — a stark contrast to the fast-talking (and seemingly nervous) Kaine.

* Tim Kaine: Someone must have told the Virginia senator he needed to always be on his front foot in the debate, always be the aggressor. It didn’t work. Kaine started the debate talking so quickly and trying to load so many Trump attacks into every answer that it made it virtually impossible to grasp any one attack. In the middle of the debate, Kaine seemed to relax into it — delivering an effective attack on Trump’s comments on women. But that Kaine was the exception, not the rule. When he wasn’t trying to stuff 10 pounds of attack in a five-pound bag in his answers, he was relentlessly interrupting Pence.  Every single time Pence started to level an attack against Hillary Clinton, Kaine immediately began to talk over him. I’m not sure if that was on purpose or not, but it didn’t come across well — at all.

Last night’s vice-presidential debate was an embarrassment for Tim Kaine, the Hillary campaign and most especially for the mainstream media and for what passes as “journalism” today.  It was an insult to voters across the nation.  American voters deserve much better than this latest attempt to turn political debate into a tabloid drama.