For 90 minutes, the understudies had their moment. Mike Pence and Kamala Harris faced each other behind plexiglass partitions in a low-key debate that was peevish but generally polite. Here are takeaways from tonight's VPDebate:
For well over a year, Democrats have drooled at the prospect of California’s former attorney general on a debate stage prosecuting her case against the Trump administration.Harris set an accusatory tone with her very first response, to a question about the COVID-19 pandemic. “The American people have witnessed the greatest failure of any presidential administration in the history of our country,” she asserted.
Much of the night Harris wore an expression of incredulity, as though she could barely restrain herself from laughing, or rolling her eyes at Pence’s solemn defense of the president. But for all of her head-shaking and the occasional grimace, Harris never managed to knock Pence off his metronomic delivery of talking points and scripted attacks, which he delivered in a modulated tone.Critics and even some friends of the tempestuous Trump have suggested the need for a grownup in the White House, to present a more sober and serious face to the world. That task frequently falls to Pence, a stolid Midwesterner and devout Christian.
On Wednesday night, the vice president wore his stoicism like a drab-colored cloak, seldom varying from the steady mien that has been his default countenance as a congressman, Indiana governor and unshakable Trump loyalist.He accused Biden of stealing the administration’s plan to fight the pandemic.
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