Will this be a snoozer or a gong show?
Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) said Thursday that he has agreed to an Oct. 1 debate with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) hosted by CBS News, setting the stage for at least one televised showdown between the Republican and Democratic vice-presidential nominees before the general election in November.
Vance said he not only accepted the Oct. 1 invitation but also challenged Walz to another debate in September.
“The American people deserve as many debates as possible …” Vance wrote on X. “Not only do I accept the CBS debate on October 1st, I accept the CNN debate on September 18th as well. I look forward to seeing you at both!”. According to CBS News, the network proposed four dates for a vice-presidential debate. Walz said Wednesday at a Boston fundraiser that he had accepted an invitation to debate Vance on Oct. 1.
Source:
https://wapo.st/3ApoFZX
Walz served in the National Guard for 24 years or something, and people claim to be upset because he moved on? Yawn.
Should be exciting if this is the biggest point of contention…
“Senator Vance, could you couch your answer in different words, please?”
Repeat as needed.
The bigger the cushion
The sweeter the pushin’.
He’ll be attacked for his response to the George Floyd mess, but otherwise he’s bulletproof. His handlers will prep him for the expected attack, of course. There’s plenty of ammo for Walz to fire, but I’m betting he takes the high ground and leaves Vance looking petty and petulant.
I disagree. I think Walz will come out swinging and not sit back and let Vance look “petty and petulant”. IMO both Walz and Harries need to attack more aggressively and not take the “high road”. There is a lot to attack there and it will help energize the base. That’s something that Biden never did as much and he could or should have .
If Walz doesn’t get in “America’s Hitler” a half-dozen times, I’ll be sorely disappointed.
I don’t know, petty and petulant seems to play well with the MAGA Hat wearers. Walz shouldn’t go too low, but show he’s willing to fight back and push the weird and anti-women stuff Vance has said.
If military record comes up via Vance being a disrespectful asshole, I would talk about the rich boy draft dodger on top of the ticket. A convenient 1 percenter’s medical excuse to avoid Vietnam.
I hope you’re right. Obama kind of set the tone with his “when they go low, we go high” shtick, but I would like to see a good old-fashioned brawl for a change.
Time will tell. Walz may come out soft-spoken, but I think he will start swinging when the shit starts to fly from Vance. Vance’s only hope is to attack harder than Walz can defend. Unfortunately, Walz is basically a nice guy, unlike Vance.
Agreed. I believe the second-biggest problem with Biden in the debate he had with Trump (aside from the obvious problem of looking and sounding bad) was that there was very little pushback on Trump’s Gish gallop of lies and exaggerations (until some point where the debate was almost over, but that was too little too late). If you just let those lies sit unaddressed, you’re practically endorsing them.
There is a balance though; you don’t want to spend the whole debate reacting to everything the other side says, or you are letting them control it. A short and sweet refutation is probably enough, before Walz gets into his own points.
Can someone explain how the attacks on Walz’s military career in the debate could possibly work? He was never deployed, but neither was Vance. And, Trump is well-known for his draft dodging. Didn’t Trump make some crack about how hard it was to be whoring around at the time when others were serving back then?
It just seems like it will completely fall flat this time.
I agree with your points here.
But, Vance was deployed
Vance spent six months in Iraq during his time with the Marines. His deployment began in August 2005 and ended in February 2006, the Marines spokesperson confirmed.
But Vance did not experience combat in Iraq and has not publicly claimed that he did.
“I served in a combat zone. I never said that I saw a firefight myself, but I’ve always told the truth about my Marine Corps service,” Vance told reporters on Aug. 7, 2024, while defending his recent criticisms of Walz’s military record.
Though Vance didn’t see combat as a military journalist, he was “in a war zone in a particularly bad year in Iraq,” Quil Lawrence, a veterans correspondent for NPR, said in early August 2024.
Vance also wrote about his time in Iraq in “Hillbilly Elegy,” saying in part that he was “lucky to escape any real fighting.”
Vance was in the Marines and in Iraq so it sounds like he was deployed. He never saw combat, but did work as a combat correspondent in Iraq between August 2005 and February 2006.
Both men served the US in the military honorably. 4 years for Vance and 24 for Walz. Neither man saw combat. That is extremely common actually. No shortage of vets never saw combat.
Well, see - Walz’s unit got order to deploy two months after he retired. Obviously he used his precognitive abilities to get out of combat duty.
Please, let’s not rehash this again in this thread. That was well covered in the VP thread. I’ll link shortly.
Starts around here: Kamala Harris's choice of Tim Walz as VP - #84 by Loach
I think having precognition would be helpful in a VP, so I’ll vote for him even harder.
Thanks for correcting me on the deployment thing. I guess I misread “never saw combat” as “never deployed”. Still seems like a weird line of attack in the debate given the name at the top of Vance’s ticket. I’m sure Walz will be well prepared for that.
Most welcome and yes, Trump is as usual the sore thumb in this.
He was a pretty clear and pretty common rich-boy medical-exemption draft-dodger. I don’t even necessarily condemn him for that, but it means he and his people have no merit when they condemn or criticize actual vets.
It’s the Karl Rove playbook. Project your weakness on your opponent and attack it. Sure, Trump was a draft dodger, but the guy who served twenty-four years is the real draft dodger.
As with all vice presidential debates, this will be eminently skippable. It’s much more entertaining to watch paint dry. If Vance doesn’t already induce vomiting in you, I see no chance of a debate swaying your vote. This is America’s favorite uncle vs America’s creepiest neighbor. No contest.