American Politics Thread: The Hunt for Blue November

[dissentowner]

This moderator has zero control

[Maritime Q-Scout]

Originally Posted by octothorp

God damn this moderator.
Pence goes overtime "thank you..." one minute pause "thank you..."
Harris goes overtime "thank you..." five second pause "thank you, thank you, thank you..."

Agreed, but she is getting more frustrated as the night has gone on.

Not sure if its a bias, or just frustration.

Of note, she does suck. Just saying I don't think its a bias, just that she sucks.

[GreenLantern2814]

This has been a supremely pleasant debate, all things considered.

[TheIronMaiden]

The anti establishment stuff should be the republican's bread and butter, that stuff is way over.

[direwolf]

Pence completely dodging the question about Trump not accepting the election results.

[Yamer]

Harris: Relevant answers, but how about 15 seconds of emotion.

Pence: Let me spend 1 minute stuffing you with ####, then 1 minute of lies. Then please, thank you you're amazing and you're fantastic, here's another pile of ####.

[Bagor]

Probably the biggest thing I'll remember about this debate is how craply it was moderated.

[bob-loblaw]

https://twitter.com/user/status/1314031047013732352

[Cali Panthers Fan]

Well that was substantially better than the last debate. At least it was a real exchange of ideas, even if some of those ideas were 100% bull#### from Pence. Overall, I was impressed with both of them, and if it were just Pence running for president, we might be seeing a different race. He's an actual politician and knows how to debate and campaign. I was disappointed that she didn't go after Pence for evading issues, but she did nail him a couple times as well.

Honestly, in the eyes of Americans, this was probably a draw.

[Table 5]

Regardless of what was said, the relative civility was refreshing.

[Johnny Makarov]

Originally Posted by Bagor

Probably the biggest thing I'll remember about this debate is how craply it was moderated.

Not the fly??
50 years from now people will still be talking about the black fly in his white horse hair.

[Robo]

Originally Posted by bob-loblaw

https://twitter.com/user/status/1314031047013732352

Holy f### that actually made me laugh uncontrollably

[Cecil Terwilliger]

I thought Pence did well.

He said what his supporters want to here and used the trump campaign talking points quite well. To the uneducated, I’d bet he was quite convincing. So I’m sure republicans bought it.

Harris did well to avoid looking bad by getting angry. She was calm and mostly on point.

But I would not call it a decisive victory for either side.

[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by Yamer

Harris: Relevant answers, but how about 15 seconds of emotion.

Female politicians cannot show emotion. They do that and then they are attacked as being emotional and not trustworthy because "they get emotional for several days a month." It is one of those things that is not fair nor equal for the men.

Harris did exactly what the Dems were hoping for. She stay composed and allowed Pence to show he had no respect for a woman and would just talk right over her. Trump was a cast as a bully after the debate, and Pence will be cast as a chauvinistic piece of ####, flies and all, in the days to follow. Pence needed to be on issue, on message, and show a modicum of respect toward his female counterpart to make up for the disaster of the Trump performance, and show the whole ticket wasn't a pair of insane clowns. Pence failed miserably.

[bob-loblaw]

I hope the fly had a mask on, otherwise it needs a Covid-19 test. At the very least, it might get pink eyes.

[nfotiu]

Originally Posted by Table 5

Regardless of what was said, the relative civility was refreshing.

True. Just goes to show that the craziness is all Trump. No both sides. No Trump is just a symptom of where the country is going. There may be a lot of crap going on, but Trump is uniquely crazy and horrible.

[octothorp]

Ipsos has a social media tracker that attempts to gauge positive vs. negative reactions in real time during the debate. It found a big spike in positive reactions to Pence about three quarters of the way through...

Which looks good, until you realize that it's just people tweeting "OMG Pence has a fly on his head "

[direwolf]

It was definitely more civil than the s**t show we witnessed last week. I thought Harris was smart, composed, and did what she needed to do. Pence lied his way through the entire thing and basically stuck to the typical Trump/GOP talking points. As mentioned above, he said everything that the MAGA crowd wanted to hear, so he did his job.

Overall this won't move the needle either way. These debates are a completely useless exercise at this point. The votes are pretty much locked in, so let's just get this crap over with already.

[Sluggo]

I guess instead of a plexiglass shield they should have used mosquito netting

[Yamer]

Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger

I thought Pence did well.

He said what his supporters want to here and used the trump campaign talking points quite well. To the uneducated, I’d bet he was quite convincing. So I’m sure republicans bought it.

Harris did well to avoid looking bad by getting angry. She was calm and mostly on point.

But I would not call it a decisive victory for either side.

Modern standards: Harris wins, but closer than expected. Reason: Pence wasn't an unhinged barbarian and played to his votership.

Traditional standards: Harris enviscerated. That was a textbook demonstration of veteran versus idiot.

Bottom line: you're 100% right. That's likely not a needle mover. We are at the point that people are comfortable settling into their own camps regardless.

Off hand: In a perfect world, that should be a learning lesson for all politicians going forward. Outside of this anomaly and context of Trump this was pretty well a masterclass of rhetoric disparity.