Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Ohio Sen. JD Vance have agreed to debate each other on Oct. 1, setting up a matchup of potential vice presidents as early voting in some states gets underway for the general election.
This will be entertaining
I dunno, these debates scare me. Harris/Walz is surging right now, and Trump/Vance is tanking: this gives Trump/Vance a chance to inject their brand of FUD by throwing shit against the wall and seeing if anything sticks.
For example, I suspect Vance is going to try and nail Walz with Walz’s 1995 DUI. That’ll be a hard one for him to talk his way out of, it’s ugly and then later his campaign lied about it.
The DUI in 95 led to Walz quitting drinking. Seeing how well Walz has disarmed other accusations before I’m not worried about that particular attack, it would probably blow up in Vance’s face.
I do share your general worry about the debates, though. Not least because the hype for them has set the bar so high that I think failure to meet these astronomical expectations will be seen as a huge win by Trump. Harris in particular needs to absolutely annihilate Trump for her not to lose momentum.
And I don’t think this is guaranteed at all. This is not her nailing people to their testimonies in the courtroom. The moderators here will NOT keep Trump in check and he will NOT show her any respect. He also will NOT be legally required to speak the truth (and we can’t expect live fact-checking). Unlike her work as a prosecutor she does not attack this debate from an intrinsic position of authority. She will need to stare Trump down and put him in his place on the sole merit of her own charisma, personal authority and force of personality. That’s not an easy thing to do.
I’m absolutely concerned.
Probably will invite the “both sides” crowd, but if I had to pick between someone who had a DUI charge but more importantly lied about it later…or someone who wrote a prologue and endorsed a fascist manifesto…not really a hard choice there. I mean, in WWII the Allies all had their problems and egomaniacs who could rightly be criticized for some bad decisions. But the other side was Hitler. So…
I don’t recall his campaign lying about the DUI, so I think the commentor is setting up a false problem. What I do know is that Walz gave up drinking afterwards and has been sober since. Thats what you lean into. “I fucked up and faced the problem head on.”
