film / tv / substack / social media / lists / web / celeb / pajiba love / misc / about / cbr
film / tv / substack / web / celeb

kaine-pence-debate.jpg

Mike Pence 'Won' the VP Debate, But Donald Trump Was the Big Loser

By Dustin Rowles | Politics | October 5, 2016 |

By Dustin Rowles | Politics | October 5, 2016 |


According to most polls and pundits, Mike Pence “won” the debate last night against Hillary Clinton’s running mate, Tim Kaine. He was the more calm and collected debater, while Tim Kaine was the more aggressive one, which is to say, Tim Kaine — in being on the attack against Donald Trump all night — took one for the team and gave up a few likability points to get across his message. Mike Pence, on the other hand, may have “won,” but he had to throw his team under the bus in order to do so. He won by ignoring and denying his running mate’s actions and comments, and by lying. So much lying. But, he was calm and collected while lying.

And while Pence did win the debate, he didn’t win where it matters: In convincing voters to cast their votes for Donald Trump.

By being a better debater than his running mate, and by failing to defend Trump, Mike Pence didn’t exactly win the favor of Donald Trump, either.

There were, in fact, a lot of headlines coming out of the debate suggesting that Donald Trump could learn a thing or two from Mike Pence. I’m sure that Trump was thrilled by that. Note to Hillary: On Sunday night, your first line should be, “How’s it feel to be outdebated by your running mate, Donald?”

In fact, though Pence won the debate for himself, he ended up making his running mate look worse not only by comparison, but by completely sidestepping Trump. Pence, instead, created a fictional running mate who never said all those things he said. The narrative this morning, in fact, will be that Trump said all those things that Pence said he didn’t say (several posts have already collected a list of statements Donald Trump made that Mike Pence denied he made).

A lot of the commentariat also suggested that Pence treated Trump the way the entire GOP will after the election: As though he didn’t exist. In other words, Pence was not trying to win this election for Trump, but the 2020 election for himself.

This morning, however, none of the talk on Twitter is who “won” the debate. What’s trending right now is #thatMexicanthing, referring to a statement Mike Pence made whenever Tim Kaine brought up the fact that Donald Trump referred to Mexicans as rapists.





In the end, I think that what Mike Pence did more than anything was to make Republicans wish they’d elected a better nominee. Mike Pence may have fared well in the debate (if you ignore his lies, and his bigoted positions), but Donald Trump did not. Ultimately, this is not about who won the debate, but who will win the election, and Mike Pence did his ticket no favors in that regard.