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Let’s be real: the job description for vice president of the United States includes breaking ties in the Senate and not much else. That means, in normal times, the vice president’s most important role is to sort of just stand by, God forbid something happens to the president.

But these are far from normal times. Both parties put forward presidential candidates in their 70s, and neither President Donald Trump nor former Vice President Joe Biden embody the pinnacle of physical and mental health. Thus, the stakes were high for tonight’s vice presidential debate.

With my face planted firmly in my palms following last week’s presidential debate, my expectations were high for Pence to better exemplify conservative ideology and debate etiquette. And, to my great satisfaction, he did.

Harris, in contrast, represented the uglier impulses of the Democratic Party’s increasingly growing far-leftist bloc. It was obvious Harris’s debate skills were tailored for crammed Democratic debates, but her heat felt out of place tonight. During her time away from the national spotlight, Harris unfortunately embraced too much of her Saturday Night Live caricature.

She repeatedly attempted to paint Pence as a Trump-level interrupter. That tactic backfired on the senator, as Pence’s performance proved to be as calm and collected as debate performances come. Despite softball questions tossed her way, Harris came off as an amateur stage actor struggling to remember her lines.

While both Harris and Pence recited talking point after talking point, the biggest moments of the night went in Pence’s favor. After Pence caught Harris in tax cut contradictions, Harris froze like a deer in headlights. The same happened in the discussion on climate, when Pence asked Harris to explain how her cosponsorship of the Green New Deal could meld with Biden’s claim that he wasn’t in favor of that hilariously imaginative piece of legislation.

The two worst moments of the night came when both Harris and Pence completely and transparently side-stepped the question of presidential incapacitation, perhaps the single most important question Americans had for the two debaters. However, the failure in that instance was the moderator, who failed to press the issue.

The second moment was when the moderator asked Pence about Trump’s battle with COVID-19 but totally failed to direct any questioning toward Harris about Biden’s obvious decline in energy and mental acuity.

All in all, the night unraveled largely quietly and uneventfully, which are both points for Pence, who needed to show he could temper Trump’s unruliness during a second term.

The winner? Pence.

Cesar Gray is a senior political science and government major. His column appears bi-weekly. He can be reached at cfgray@syr.edu.

Published on October 8, 2020 at 12:42 am