Mike Pence just blew it royally
To be fair, it was always going to be almost impossible for Mike Pence to win tonight’s debate. He was going to be stuck defending the deeply unpopular Donald Trump and the hideous Trump-Pence track record, which would be impossible for just about anyone to pull off. But Mike Pence found a way to blow it royally tonight.
Mike Pence’s job tonight was to behave in a mild mannered way, and normalize the Trump regime in the eyes of voters. But Pence isn’t doing that. Instead he’s making a point of going as far over his time limit as possible, cutting off Kamala Harris as often as possible, and being as rude to the moderator as possible.
Because Pence is a glorified robot, even at his rudest he’s still unable to turn in the kind of psychotic performance that Donald Trump turned in during last week’s debate. But the Pence robot is trying his hardest to pull a Trump tonight – and it’s obviously the wrong strategy. The average viewer tonight will only come away with one impression: that Pence is just a rude bastard.
We’re guessing that Mike Pence is behaving this way tonight because Donald Trump told him to. But it’s the wrong move, because it helps to underscore the impression that the Trump-Pence regime is a bunch of jerks. In any case Kamala Harris is still managing to outshine Pence tonight, even with the limited time she’s being given.
Bill Palmer is the publisher of the political news outlet Palmer Report