The Power of the VEEP
Vance is no Mike Pence.
So, I decided to watch the VP debate last night, and I agree with James Joyner that it wasn’t an especially consequential event. One thing that I have to note (and Trump tried to do the same thing to Harris, although less well than Vance), is that Vance kept stating that as Vice President, Harris should have already implemented all her policy goals. I mean, Vance knows he is running to be emergency backup equipment, right?
On the one hand, I get it: the goal of the challenger is to make the incumbent administration look like it had its chance. But, the ongoing rhetorical attempt to make it sound like the Vice President should have initiated a series of policies is grating to the ears of anyone who has an inkling of how the government works.
On balance, the debate was kind of boring and it felt more “normal” than our politics have felt in a while. Vance was not as smarmy as I expected and Walz was nervous and less folksy attack-doggy than he can be in speeches. I suspect that the overall view of who won will correlate highly with general partisan priors.
But, of course, we can’t ignore the 2020 denialism of it all and the centrality of the previous veep in those events.
This is the key clip of the whole debate, although even it fits into my gripe above because what Vance is talking about is the Biden administration’s attempts to keep misinformation about the pandemic off social media, but somehow it becomes an action by the Vice President.
And I would note the following from Vance,
“Yeah, well, look, Tim, first of all, it’s really rich for Democratic leaders to say that Donald Trump is a unique threat to democracy when he peacefully gave over power on January the 20th, as we have done for 250 years in this country.”
While it is true that Trump slunk away on the 20th. But the event of January 6th plainly underscores that for the first time in our history, we did not have a peaceful transfer of power. We clearly had a violent disruption of a constitutionally mandated stage of the election and one that was incited by the sitting president. Who, again, after watching the events for hours on TV and not trying to stop any of it, told the insurrectionists that he loved them and understood them.
So, it is worth remembering that the one truly consequential thing that Mike Pence did as Vice President was doing his constitutional duty in certifying legitimately cast electoral votes. He could have further disrupted the moment and created a constitutional crisis if he had done what Trump, Eastman, Lee, and others wanted him to do. But he didn’t, and as Walz noted last night, “that’s why Mike Pence isn’t on this stage.”
JD Vance is willing to propagate the big lie about 2020 and he is signaling that if he ever gets the chance, he won’t be a Mike Pence.
The biggest lie of the evening was that Vance managed to come off as human. Fact checking this morning may partly overcome that impression, but only for the political junkies who read it.
Vance did an effective job of selling their main point, the economy. Trump inherited a good economy after Obama fixed the damage from his GOP predecessor, so the economy will be good under Trump again, after he inherits the repaired economy Biden put together.
Vance: I’m focused on the future, so let’s talk about what Harris did in 2021 instead of what Trump did in 2020
Also Vance: we had a transfer of power in 2020 like we had for 250 years [except that the outgoing president didn’t attend]
@Steven
While we’re largely in agreement, I actually think this is fair from a tactics standpoint. Harris was handed the nomination without a fight and is now trying to have it both ways: she gets credit for anything good that happened since January 20, 2021 but none of the blame for the bad because Biden, not her, was making the calls. Unless she calls out where she disagreed with Biden on the issues, it’s reasonable to hold her responsible for the Biden-Harris Administration’s policies.
Normally, “Vance is no Mike
DensePence” would be a pretty glowing endorsement. Just sayin’…@James Joyner:
I’d like to note that from a tactics standpoint, Harris trying to have it both ways isn’t much of an argument coming from Trump. Unlike Harris, TFG was actually POTUS for a full term and he’s now trying to have it both ways – he wants credit for everything good that happened for the three years up to the start of the pandemic, but none of the blame for the bad even though he was in completely in charge.
I think Walz made this point well during the debate, while underlining two key points for the Democrats: Trump keeps promising easy solutions once he is in charge and that one of the main reasons Trump doesn’t work toward solutions is that the persistence of the problem serves his needs.
Does anyone besides Trump think that mass deportation (the Trump 2024 version of Build that Wall) will be easy to execute or that it will “solve” immigration?
@James Joyner: I take the tactical point. But it is still like fingernails on the chalkboard to me whenever they talk like the Vice President should have done X, Y, or Z.
@James Joyner: @Steven L. Taylor:
If the V.P. disagrees with the Prez policies, the accepted norm is she does it in private consultation.
Publically, the V.P. is expected to be in complete agreement with Prez policies, the expected norm is no disagreement publically whatsoever.
(The same applies to First Ladies, e.g. Hillary getting lumbered by things Bill did).
@Steven L. Taylor: @charontwo: I get that VPs don’t have any technical power and are rather hamstrung in criticizing their boss while still in office. But it’s perfectly reasonable for Trump and Vance to run against the Biden-Harris legacy, notwithstanding the change atop the ticket. Bush did so in 2000, and Dukakis did it in 1988; otherwise, the sitting veep gets to have their cake and eat it, too.
@James Joyner:
This critique doesn’t square to me. I think it’s noise from people who pretend to care about policy, but don’t. The few voters serious about policy should already be tuned-in enough to know Harris is running to Biden’s left on marijuana legalization, for example, and to Biden’s right on corporate tax rates.
I think the issue is some want Harris to claim Biden has executed poorly, but she won’t because he hasn’t. Outside of Fox News fever dreams, there hasn’t been much “bad” from this administration for Harris to break with, even where the White House is vulnerable.
Despite all the pandering and fearmongering, elected Democrats and Republicans both know migration is a net positive in this era of declining birth rates. That’s why Republicans didn’t pass an immigration bill when Trump was president. To date, it’s been no more than a campaign issue for the right, a point reinforced by Trump killing the Biden era bipartisan border bill endorsed by Border Patrol. Why would Harris break with Biden here instead of pointing all that out?
On the economy, Trump left it in shambles last time. Today, Republicans have no plan to lower costs. Instead, Trump is pledging to raise prices with job-killing tarriffs. And conservatives oppose every effort to ease economic pain. They force women to birth children they can’t afford. They deny rampant corporate price gouging. They oppose minimum wage hikes. They block paid leave, universal health care, universal pre-K, and child tax credits. Why would Harris blame Biden, instead of highlighting all this?
If I had my druthers Harris would break with Uncle Joe by being more hawkish in Ukraine support and by complaining incessantly about high prices and corporate greed. But on balance Biden’s been a good president, so his sidekick’s campaign reflects that.
I want to understand this scenario. This would mean that JD Vance would be the sitting Vice-President under Trump who would be completing a four term ending in January 2029. Trump would have suffered a defeat while running for a third term as President USA in November of 2028. JD Vance would then be in a position to stop the counting of the Electoral College votes at Trumps behest.
Wait a minute. This means that the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution would have to be repealed during Trump’s second term before the general election in November of 2028.
Of course Trump could just suspend the constitution altogether and as Trump told a crowd to “get out and vote, just this time”, adding that “you won’t have to do it any more. Four more years, you know what? It’ll be fixed, it’ll be fine, you won’t have to vote any more, my beautiful Christians.”
Source
@Mister Bluster:
You’re doing too much math. If Trump is elected he will suspend the Constitution in big and small ways and the Courts will go along with it because, well, power. Congress or state governors won’t matter cause after the first couple get arrested in January no one will say shit.
@Beth:..too much math.
And I always thought the name Beth meant Happy Flower or something like that.
@Mister Bluster:..four year term ending in January 2029.
That only took an hour to correct after proofing it multiple times…
How about we add more time to the EDIT key. To the end of the day would work for me.
@Mister Bluster: In Hebrew (from whence the names come), “Elizabeth” means “pledged to God,” but if our Beth isn’t wanting to be an “eliza” variety, “beth” as a standalone means “house,” “tent,” or “place.”
@James Joyner: I don’t recall anyone saying the “Vice President Bush” didn’t do X, Y, or Z. But yes, they attacked the previous administration.
I understand what is going on.
I still find it annoying the degree to which the assertion is specifically that Harris didn’t do X. She couldn’t have. Hang the administration’s failures around her neck, sure, but stop making it sound like the VP initiates and implements policy.
@Mister Bluster: How about VP Vance running in 2028 for president and subverting the process in his favor?
Or, more generically, being willing to subvert the constitution in service of Trump.
The scenario does not have to be identical for the general moral concern to be valid.
@Steven L. Taylor:..VP Vance…
I have no doubt that a VP Vance would be Trump’s Number One Lackey.
If Trump demanded that Vance betray his own family I believe he would do it.
I recall that Mike Pence, during his VP candidate debates, was able to smoothly and self assuredly tell obvious lies, not too unlike Vance. Much is made of Vance’s Yale Law background, which he shares with folks such as Stewart Rhodes and Hunter Biden. But Pence’s IU-Indianapolis Law School background, which he shares with the likes of Sen Todd Young and Dan Quayle, is nothing to sneeze at.
And then there’s the fact that Pence honed his verbal rhetoric during several years as a right wing radio talk show host.