# Walz & Vance Debate Follow-Along -- Tue, Oct 1, 2024, 8:00 PM CDT **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [September 30, 2024, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/walz-vance-debate-follow-along-tue-oct-1-2024-8-00-pm-cdt/1008284 "2024-09-30T14:05:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 22
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2024, 10:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/walz-vance-debate-follow-along-tue-oct-1-2024-8-00-pm-cdt/1008284/421 "2024-10-02T10:57:41Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > Vance was more polished, but Walz was more sincere. > [@Atamasama](#): > > Vance is who people were afraid DeSantis might be. > [@psychobunny](#): > > It reminds me of the quote from Hamilton “Jefferson has beliefs; Burr has none”, Vance will say or do whatever it takes to get power. Agreed. ---
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2024, 11:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/walz-vance-debate-follow-along-tue-oct-1-2024-8-00-pm-cdt/1008284/422 "2024-10-02T11:50:28Z")
I enjoyed Lawrence O’Donnell’s crack during the post debate show on msnbc about how Vance is the only VP candidate in history who doesn’t know who won the previous election. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2024, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/walz-vance-debate-follow-along-tue-oct-1-2024-8-00-pm-cdt/1008284/423 "2024-10-02T12:00:16Z")
I was disappointed that one of the first questions to Walz was about whether or not he was in Hong Kong during Tiananmen. Who gives a flying fuck in a rolling donut hole? What the hell is the significance in that? I wish the moderators had asked Vance one simple question: When the US puts tariffs on imported goods, who pays for it? Still waiting for anyone to call out Donnie’s total lack of understanding on how tariffs actually work. Vance is certainly more articulate and educated than his bozo running mate, but I think just as evil. Walz did have a slow start but abortion and school shootings brought out his strongest performance and showed Vance’s weakest. ---
**Author:** ![wguy123](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wguy123/32/3161_2.png) [@wguy123](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wguy123)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2024, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/walz-vance-debate-follow-along-tue-oct-1-2024-8-00-pm-cdt/1008284/424 "2024-10-02T12:23:14Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > I wish the moderators had asked Vance one simple question: When the US puts tariffs on imported goods, who pays for it? Isn’t that where he mentioned those Wharton economists don’t know what they are talking about but Trump does? ---
**Author:** ![TeroSunbear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terosunbear/32/14748_2.png) [@TeroSunbear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TeroSunbear)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2024, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/walz-vance-debate-follow-along-tue-oct-1-2024-8-00-pm-cdt/1008284/425 "2024-10-02T12:33:31Z")
JD Vance is actually going to be relieved of certifiying electoral votes and being hanged if he does not. Because Ivanka is not going to run and Trumpism is soon over. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2024, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/walz-vance-debate-follow-along-tue-oct-1-2024-8-00-pm-cdt/1008284/426 "2024-10-02T12:44:02Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > What the hell is the significance in that? Character. It was a missed opportunity to immediately answer that he misspoke and eliminate an ongoing effort to paint him as a confabulist because he misspoke. He got there but it took a bit. Demonstrating the character ability to own up to mistakes without weaseling about vs deflecting admitting it. ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2024, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/walz-vance-debate-follow-along-tue-oct-1-2024-8-00-pm-cdt/1008284/427 "2024-10-02T12:50:06Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > Vance is certainly more articulate and educated than his bozo running mate, but I think just as evil. Yeah. If you didn’t know any of his prior history, based on just this debate, you could come away thinking he’d be a decent president, if it came to that. Lucky for us, we do know his history, and so know that whatever good things he said last night are almost certainly lies. He knew he had to say them, but we know he has no intention to follow through on them. ---
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2024, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/walz-vance-debate-follow-along-tue-oct-1-2024-8-00-pm-cdt/1008284/428 "2024-10-02T12:53:10Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > Still waiting for anyone to call out Donnie’s total lack of understanding on how tariffs actually work. IIRC, David Muir did during the presidential debate. But it’s one of those things, like Trump killing the immigration bill, that needs to be repeated over and over and over… ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2024, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/walz-vance-debate-follow-along-tue-oct-1-2024-8-00-pm-cdt/1008284/429 "2024-10-02T13:24:09Z")
Wow. Walz did okay, but Vance was a surprise. Never expected him to be so polished. Now I’m worried about him facing the incumbents (Harris/Walz) in four years. ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2024, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/walz-vance-debate-follow-along-tue-oct-1-2024-8-00-pm-cdt/1008284/430 "2024-10-02T13:35:10Z")
> [@Win\_Place\_Show](#): > > There’ll be a non-zero number of fence-sitters watching tonight from PA or NC who thought “ya know, I could vote for Trump for one more term and let him hand the keys to Vance in 2028. I agree, Vance helped himself with those few fence-sitters who would like to vote Repub but realize trump is nutballs. They might even bank on the not unlikely possibility that they don’t even have to wait until 2028, that trump has a massive coronary and doesn’t make it far into his second term; a possibility Vance is likely hoping for as well. I found myself wondering several times during his sane-washing of things trump has said or done how he manages to look himself in the mirror. He knows very well how crazy and unqualified trump is; his true feelings about trump are public knowledge. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2024, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/walz-vance-debate-follow-along-tue-oct-1-2024-8-00-pm-cdt/1008284/431 "2024-10-02T13:35:35Z")
Not to be too smug, but I very much expected Vance to be more polished than Walz. This is more familiar terrain for Vance. When Vance is interviewed on cable news, he falls flat because interviewers will interject to correct him (though he tries hard to talk over them / filibuster). I knew he’d be in his element being able to deliver a long screed, starting it with a bunch of lies in the premise, and that would therefore be awkward to correct. In terms of the future, I think it depends on the whole information bubble / fake news thing. If in 4 years time MAGA tribalism still exists, and it is fed a steady diet of propaganda (which by then will largely be AI-generated video and audio), we’re screwed. Whichever demagogue is at the head of it. ---
**Author:** ![snowthx](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowthx/32/10660_2.png) [@snowthx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snowthx)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2024, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/walz-vance-debate-follow-along-tue-oct-1-2024-8-00-pm-cdt/1008284/432 "2024-10-02T13:38:18Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > I wish the moderators had asked Vance one simple question: When the US puts tariffs on imported goods, who pays for it? Still waiting for anyone to call out Donnie’s total lack of understanding on how tariffs actually work. Oh, he understands, allright. It’s a wealth redistribution scheme, but rather than taking from the uber rich and spreading money around to more corners of the economy, it’s taking from everyone and funnelling more money to the uber rich. Doy! ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2024, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/walz-vance-debate-follow-along-tue-oct-1-2024-8-00-pm-cdt/1008284/433 "2024-10-02T13:50:08Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > Wow. Walz did okay, but Vance was a surprise. Never expected him to be so polished. A post-debate [CNN poll](https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/02/politics/election-poll-walz-vance-debate/index.html) basically shows agreement, while still favoring Walz as being more sympathetic and in tune with voters. The overall poll result shows the debate as a wash with no clear victor. Amazingly (?) the poll aligns pretty with what Dopers have said here. No doubt that on Fox and right-wing websites they’re reassuring each other that Vance mopped the floor with Walz. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2024, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/walz-vance-debate-follow-along-tue-oct-1-2024-8-00-pm-cdt/1008284/434 "2024-10-02T13:55:11Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > Vance is a political talent who has screwed himself by hitching his wagon to Trump. I don’t think he’s a fundamentally evil person, and in the debate he didn’t seem to have any real passion for either Trump or what remains of the GOP. As others have said above, he would be a much better candidate than Trump himself and–dare I say it?–might actually be a normal and even effective president were he to have a chance. Vance is a misogynist who doesn’t give a shit about anybody but his own immediate descendents, as is proved by his saying that childless people have no stake in the future. The fact that he can put an apparently civil face on that doesn’t mean that he’d make a good president. Effective, maybe – but what he might be effective at is nothing that I, or a whole lot of other people, ever want to see happen. > [@solost](#): > > I found myself wondering several times during his sane-washing of things trump has said or done how he manages to look himself in the mirror. He knows very well how crazy and unqualified trump is; his true feelings about trump are public knowledge I doubt he has any trouble at all looking himself in the face; because I doubt that he thinks that matters. I think what he sees is himself eventually becoming POTUS and that that, in his head, would make right anything at all that he did to get there. ---
**Author:** ![steronz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steronz/32/11765_2.png) [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2024, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/walz-vance-debate-follow-along-tue-oct-1-2024-8-00-pm-cdt/1008284/435 "2024-10-02T13:58:45Z")
Yeah, he got there but he needed flip around his responses. “I misspoke; I was there in the summer and not the spring. But let me explain what I was doing there in the first place…” Vance is a very effective liar, but he came prepared. Fortunately these debate won’t matter much and Walz did perfectly fine. Just not great. ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2024, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/walz-vance-debate-follow-along-tue-oct-1-2024-8-00-pm-cdt/1008284/436 "2024-10-02T14:01:49Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > I think what he sees is himself eventually becoming POTUS and that that, in his head, would make right anything at all that he did to get there. But then it becomes a question of, “Why Trump?” We know from what Vance has said previously, that he knows how bad Trump is. So why hitch his wagon to Trump? Vance is a sitting Senator, with years left in his term. He could make a move to be President on his own in 4 or 8 years, unburdened by Trump’s legacy. So why sign on now? Is it a matter of “I couldn’t say no”, when Trump asked him to run for VP? ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2024, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/walz-vance-debate-follow-along-tue-oct-1-2024-8-00-pm-cdt/1008284/437 "2024-10-02T14:02:13Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > was disappointed that one of the first questions to Walz was about whether or not he was in Hong Kong during Tiananmen. Who gives a flying fuck in a rolling donut hole? What the hell is the significance in that? To be totally fair and impartial, IMO it was a test of character and Walz whiffed it. He could’ve said “I was in China that summer when the blood was still on the ground, it was clear that the energy had shifted in an important way that has influenced my thinking on China from that day forward.” Instead he did several minutes of painfully cringe-inducing deflection that screamed “I lied and I want to talk about something else.” Of course everybody onstage lied and deflected to an extent, and none more than Vance. Walz could’ve owned up and demonstrated that contrast in a spectaculary way, but instead he gave this weaselly cringe-worthy answer that will easily give ammunition to the “they’re all liars” crowd. I’m tempted to think that Vance also stepped in it with “I was told there would be no fact-checking”. But that’s a sentiment that the Republican base will straightforwardly identify. “hey, we were told we could lie with impunity, fact-checking is cheating”. That’s what a rules-based order means to them. ---
**Author:** ![Folacin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/folacin/32/3195_2.png) [@Folacin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folacin)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2024, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/walz-vance-debate-follow-along-tue-oct-1-2024-8-00-pm-cdt/1008284/438 "2024-10-02T14:02:36Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > Not to be too smug, but I very much expected Vance to be more polished than Walz. Very much this. Vance is a graduate of Ohio State University and Yale Law School. His off the cuff interpersonal skills are low (see him trying to buy donuts), but in an environment where he knows 99% of the questions he is going to be asked it would be astonishing if he didn’t come off looking good. In contrast, Walz went to what I assume is perfectly fine 4-year college in Nebraska, and has a master’s in education from what I know was sort of everyone in my area of the state safety school. He’s also a second term governor and a 5-term Congressman, so I’d expect him to be a competent but not necessarily polished speaker, and that’s what he came off as. ---
**Author:** ![rocking\_chair](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rocking_chair/32/2918_2.png) [@rocking\_chair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rocking_chair)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2024, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/walz-vance-debate-follow-along-tue-oct-1-2024-8-00-pm-cdt/1008284/439 "2024-10-02T14:06:48Z")
That is the whole idea of a vice president debate. Do no harm, don’t overshadow the top of the ticket. Last night I saw Walz as a Biden type, Vance as an Edwards type. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2024, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/walz-vance-debate-follow-along-tue-oct-1-2024-8-00-pm-cdt/1008284/440 "2024-10-02T14:06:59Z")
> [@Folacin](#): > > In contrast, Walz went to what I assume is perfectly fine 4-year college in Nebraska, and has a master’s in education from what I know was sort of everyone in my area of the state safety school. He’s also a second term governor and a 5-term Congressman, so I’d expect him to be a competent but not necessarily polished speaker, and that’s what he came off as. I did not care for the wide-eyed imploring “LOOK GUYS,” every 30 seconds. To me it carried an air of panic and desperation, like a football coach trying to rally an underdog team in the last few minutes of the game. He knew he was outclassed as a polished debater, he expected to get destroyed, every talking point was like a Hail Mary pass. It’s unfortunate that Walz had an advantage on facts yet struggled to exploit it as a debater. But as others have said I don’t think it amounts to much, it’s not even worth the ink I’ve spilled on it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/walz-vance-debate-follow-along-tue-oct-1-2024-8-00-pm-cdt/1008284.md?page=21) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/walz-vance-debate-follow-along-tue-oct-1-2024-8-00-pm-cdt/1008284.md?page=23)