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US Vice-Presidential Debates 2016 |OT| Your Big Awkward Family Reunion

Who won the debate?


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Most of Norwegian media seems to say Pence won. Even Klassekampen, a lefty newspaper says Pence won.

Basically, to the average viewer Pence won. But her's the problem, Pence was fighting the Battle--debating Tim Kaine directly--but Kaine won the war. What I mean by that is, the damage Tim Kaine did to the Trump Campaign will be lasting. He managed to reveal that Pence literally cannot defend his own parties nominee on the world stage. Pence had no answers for the things Trump has said, and at one point outright said "he's not a polished politician" which is the kind of thing that plays well to the Republican base, but for Moderate voters it's bad. Like, really bad. Now a lot of people were questioning this strategy, but I think it's because the Clinton Campaign doesn't think Hillary can go all in on attacking Trump in a debate like Tim Kaine can. Some of the points he brought up and Mike Pence didn't have answers for, will absolutely resurface in Sunday's debate.

The main thing about this is Pence's victory will be short lived. Reports are already coming out that Trump is not happy Pence "upstaged him", and once news networks start running their highlight clips, Kaine is going to sound like the definitive winner, because he has tons of good lines that just cut the Trump Campaign off at the knees. Kaine's main failing was that he was too anxious early on, and seemed almost Trump-esque for the first half of the debate, consistently interrupting Pence, who stayed pretty calm and collected during the whole thing. I will say, Pence maintained his cool, and he looked very professional compared to how Trump looked last week, and that might be why people feel like he won.

At the end of the day I can best describe it as Pence won the debate, and Tim Kaine didn't lose it. There were no "Gotcha" moments for Kaine, and he exposed a massive rift in the Trump Campaign, and kept the focus of the public on the people actually being voted for in November. Pence looked like a very respectable Republican Candidate, so people were alright with saying he won, but it's only because he was spending the entire time fighting against Kaine's attacks on Trump.
 

m3k

Member
Basically, to the average viewer Pence won. But her's the problem, Pence was fighting the Battle--debating Tim Kaine directly--but Kaine won the war. What I mean by that is, the damage Tim Kaine did to the Trump Campaign will be lasting. He managed to reveal that Pence literally cannot defend his own parties nominee on the world stage. Pence had no answers for the things Trump has said, and at one point outright said "he's not a polished politician" which is the kind of thing that plays well to the Republican base, but for Moderate voters it's bad. Like, really bad. Now a lot of people were questioning this strategy, but I think it's because the Clinton Campaign doesn't think Hillary can go all in on attacking Trump in a debate like Tim Kaine can. Some of the points he brought up and Mike Pence didn't have answers for, will absolutely resurface in Sunday's debate.

The main thing about this is Pence's victory will be short lived. Reports are already coming out that Trump is not happy Pence "upstaged him", and once news networks start running their highlight clips, Kaine is going to sound like the definitive winner, because he has tons of good lines that just cut the Trump Campaign off at the knees. Kaine's main failing was that he was too anxious early on, and seemed almost Trump-esque for the first half of the debate, consistently interrupting Pence, who stayed pretty calm and collected during the whole thing. I will say, Pence maintained his cool, and he looked very professional compared to how Trump looked last week, and that might be why people feel like he won.

At the end of the day I can best describe it as Pence won the debate, and Tim Kaine didn't lose it. There were no "Gotcha" moments for Kaine, and he exposed a massive rift in the Trump Campaign, and kept the focus of the public on the people actually being voted for in November. Pence looked like a very respectable Republican Candidate, so people were alright with saying he won, but it's only because he was spending the entire time fighting against Kaine's attacks on Trump.
i basically agree with all of your post
 
Basically, to the average viewer Pence won. But her's the problem, Pence was fighting the Battle--debating Tim Kaine directly--but Kaine won the war. What I mean by that is, the damage Tim Kaine did to the Trump Campaign will be lasting. He managed to reveal that Pence literally cannot defend his own parties nominee on the world stage. Pence had no answers for the things Trump has said, and at one point outright said "he's not a polished politician" which is the kind of thing that plays well to the Republican base, but for Moderate voters it's bad. Like, really bad. Now a lot of people were questioning this strategy, but I think it's because the Clinton Campaign doesn't think Hillary can go all in on attacking Trump in a debate like Tim Kaine can. Some of the points he brought up and Mike Pence didn't have answers for, will absolutely resurface in Sunday's debate.

The main thing about this is Pence's victory will be short lived. Reports are already coming out that Trump is not happy Pence "upstaged him", and once news networks start running their highlight clips, Kaine is going to sound like the definitive winner, because he has tons of good lines that just cut the Trump Campaign off at the knees. Kaine's main failing was that he was too anxious early on, and seemed almost Trump-esque for the first half of the debate, consistently interrupting Pence, who stayed pretty calm and collected during the whole thing. I will say, Pence maintained his cool, and he looked very professional compared to how Trump looked last week, and that might be why people feel like he won.

At the end of the day I can best describe it as Pence won the debate, and Tim Kaine didn't lose it. There were no "Gotcha" moments for Kaine, and he exposed a massive rift in the Trump Campaign, and kept the focus of the public on the people actually being voted for in November. Pence looked like a very respectable Republican Candidate, so people were alright with saying he won, but it's only because he was spending the entire time fighting against Kaine's attacks on Trump.

Well said.
 
Basically, to the average viewer Pence won. But her's the problem, Pence was fighting the Battle--debating Tim Kaine directly--but Kaine won the war. What I mean by that is, the damage Tim Kaine did to the Trump Campaign will be lasting. He managed to reveal that Pence literally cannot defend his own parties nominee on the world stage. Pence had no answers for the things Trump has said, and at one point outright said "he's not a polished politician" which is the kind of thing that plays well to the Republican base, but for Moderate voters it's bad. Like, really bad. Now a lot of people were questioning this strategy, but I think it's because the Clinton Campaign doesn't think Hillary can go all in on attacking Trump in a debate like Tim Kaine can. Some of the points he brought up and Mike Pence didn't have answers for, will absolutely resurface in Sunday's debate.

The main thing about this is Pence's victory will be short lived. Reports are already coming out that Trump is not happy Pence "upstaged him", and once news networks start running their highlight clips, Kaine is going to sound like the definitive winner, because he has tons of good lines that just cut the Trump Campaign off at the knees. Kaine's main failing was that he was too anxious early on, and seemed almost Trump-esque for the first half of the debate, consistently interrupting Pence, who stayed pretty calm and collected during the whole thing. I will say, Pence maintained his cool, and he looked very professional compared to how Trump looked last week, and that might be why people feel like he won.

At the end of the day I can best describe it as Pence won the debate, and Tim Kaine didn't lose it. There were no "Gotcha" moments for Kaine, and he exposed a massive rift in the Trump Campaign, and kept the focus of the public on the people actually being voted for in November. Pence looked like a very respectable Republican Candidate, so people were alright with saying he won, but it's only because he was spending the entire time fighting against Kaine's attacks on Trump.

Great Post, I do think its important to add that I really felt like I was was watching two different battles. Kaine was attacking the Trump campaign directly. Like you said likely because if Hilary does it, it won't be received favorably (I think its sexism, most men don't like to see a woman really go after and attack them like that, so because of that Kaine doing it instead won't be viewed in the same way even if he did over reach its really the only time ANYONE from her camp can attack Trump directly) and because of that Kaine never really attacked Pence's character besides asking him how he can defend Trump (he can't and he knows that already which is why he didn't fall into that trap) but Pence himself has many things you could easily hit him hard on such as LGBT and even when he did attack him such as that recent decision by Republican Judges he didn't even really try to lay into him for that. Kaine and likely Hilary's Camp knows that Pence doesn't ultimately matter in this election (or at least they don't think so) so the best way attack the ticket is to largely ignore Pence and attack Trump directly.

Then you have Pence who really held his own, he was defensive the entire time but he never lost his cool and he did really talk about conservative values, its been said multiple times now but it really seemed like he was using this as practice to run for a Presidential bid himself in another 4 or 8 years. It honestly makes a lot of sense, he didn't try to defend Trump (its a trap and he knows it but its normally the job of the running mate to support the main ticket and he didn't even really TRY to do that at all) hes clearly out for himself and he performed VASTLY better then Trump did and like you said there's already reports Trump is PISSED that Pence basically threw him under the bus and completely out performed him. Pence attacked Hilary directly but also Obama multiple times and while thats a common thing for conservatives to do it sets up the larger stage for Pence himself in the future and ironically Pence kept talking about how Hilary's camp is insult driven (which they are... by using Trumps own words against him) which would suggest HE HIMSELF wouldn't stoop to that level, again setting up his own Presidential bid in the future. He was extremely careful of what he was doing though, he had to make himself look good (and better then Trump, not just in terms of the debate itself but as a conservative in general) but also highlight and support Trump's POLICIES which he did, he ignored the bait to try and defend Trump's racist speeches but he made sure to back up the 'plans' Trump has which is something that conservatives certainly are wanting him to do. The crazy thing is he really did all that, I think he pulled it off extremely well.

What's hilarious is that Trump likely picked Pence to use him, and Pence clearly isn't stupid and instead of letting himself be used, he is using Trump to promote himself and get on the national stage now so in another 4 or 8 years he'll likely be one of the major front runners for the Republican party.

In other words...

Kaine attacked Trump because Pence doesn't matter right now and Hilary can't do the same thing without looking bad, he also presented himself as a good VP pick and there wasn't a lot that anyone can attack him personally on. He came off as over bearing and aggressive which hurt him personally but hurts Trump's campaign massively. On top of that Kaine did do a really great job defending Hilary when he needed to.

Pence was looking towards the future and likely realizes the Trump ticket is screwed so he made himself look good and supported Conservative values and policies while doing the very minimal to back Trump but also making himself look good by not falling for any traps and keeping a calm, cool, level head the whole time. Trump got under a lot of peoples skin in the primaries if Pence had been there that may had not have happened, and if Trump runs again in another 4 or 8 years Pence will likely screw him over big time.

Neither VP candidate was actually debating the other candidate which I found interesting, it was attacks at the party leaders and the top ticket rather then each other and while thats an easy thing to do Kaine did a much better job making Hilary look good then Pence made Trump look which is what matters right now in this election.

Ultimately I think both VP's did what they set out to do, Pence was the stronger debater and I can see why people say he won the debate but it'll be short lived in this election, Kaine attacked Trump hard and it worked for the most part (would have worked better if Pence took the bait but hes smarter then Trump in that regard) and made him look like a really good VP thats not afraid to defend his running mate. Pence really showed that he likely should have been the top ticket in this race and has set himself up well for the future if he does indeed decide to run.

Better debate then I thought we would get honestly.
 

CHC

Member
I feel like Kaine beat Trump, but Pence beat Kaine. It's weird. Pence would be a fine candidate, actually, he's remarkably un-hateable when he's on stage speaking. I don't really agree with.... much of anything that he is saying, but he's passably respectful and charismatic.
 
I feel like Kaine beat Trump, but Pence beat Kaine. It's weird. Pence would be a fine candidate, actually, he's remarkably un-hateable when he's on stage speaking.

Pence would be crushed if his actual record was attacked by someone better at debating than Kaine. He's a terrible man with some pretty awful legislation under his belt that isn't really defendable. A little bit of it came out when Kaine mentioned Pence's law being thrown out for being discriminating, but that's just the tip of the iceberg.

But this wasn't Kaine vs Pence, it was Kaine vs Trump, and Kaine did fine with that.
 

CHC

Member
Pence would be crushed if his actual record was attacked by someone better at debating than Kaine. He's a terrible man with some pretty awful legislation under his belt that isn't really defendable. A little bit of it came out when Kaine mentioned Pence's law being thrown out for being discriminating, but that's just the tip of the iceberg.

But this wasn't Kaine vs Pence, it was Kaine vs Trump, and Kaine did fine with that.

Pretty much. I don't think he's a good guy or anything, but he has some iota of charisma and it's funny that he would be a much more viable candidate than Trump would. I don't think Pence "beat" Clinton, but I do think he beat Kaine. I also think Kaine "beat" Trump. But the whole debate didn't seem to really change the current dynamic much, which is good at least.
 

Gattsu25

Banned
I feel like Kaine beat Trump, but Pence beat Kaine. It's weird. Pence would be a fine candidate, actually, he's remarkably un-hateable when he's on stage speaking. I don't really agree with.... much of anything that he is saying, but he's passably respectful and charismatic.

Kaine beat trump
Pence beat Kaine
Pence beat trump

Regarding how measured Pence appears despite his horrible record, that's why I predicted that he would win the debate.
 

Toxi

Banned
Pence would be crushed if his actual record was attacked by someone better at debating than Kaine. He's a terrible man with some pretty awful legislation under his belt that isn't really defendable. A little bit of it came out when Kaine mentioned Pence's law being thrown out for being discriminating, but that's just the tip of the iceberg.

But this wasn't Kaine vs Pence, it was Kaine vs Trump, and Kaine did fine with that.
Hell, Pence would have probably "lost" if Kaine was seriously going after his record. It's not like the polls said people thought Pence won by a landslide. Pence narrowly won on demeanor against an opponent who had a horrendous start and was spending most of the debate attacking someone else.

You saw how Pence basically melted on abortion. Now imagine Kaine actually bringing up his record on gay marriage. But the problem with that is that Trump doesn't have the evangelical Republican viewpoint on gay marriage.
 
Pence has been just terrible on social issues.

Gay Marriage is a slam dunk.

I'd prefer to see more lines of, "Are you guys really considering voting for a ticket with a party that thinks homosexuality is a horrible sin?"
 
It amuses me to think that Trump might be mad at Pence for insulting Putin.

Edit: killer ad! Just what I was hoping to see after last night.
 

Gattsu25

Banned
Pence has been just terrible on social issues.

Gay Marriage is a slam dunk.

I'd prefer to see more lines of, "Are you guys really considering voting for a ticket with a party that thinks homosexuality is a horrible sin?"
I'm convinced that line of attack would have improved Trump/Pence support amongst undecided conservatives.
 
Pence was looking towards the future and likely realizes the Trump ticket is screwed so he made himself look good and supported Conservative values and policies while doing the very minimal to back Trump but also making himself look good by not falling for any traps and keeping a calm, cool, level head the whole time. Trump got under a lot of peoples skin in the primaries if Pence had been there that may had not have happened, and if Trump runs again in another 4 or 8 years Pence will likely screw him over big time.

Yup, totally agree. Last night was nothing more than Pence setting himself up for a 2020 presidential run.
 

cyress8

Banned
How can you even win a debate purely on style when you say almost nothing valid and fail to capably defend your candidate? Pundit class so far up its own ass on this.

People complain and become cynical about politics, then they fucking devolve into this reality show-esque grading on presidential debates, it's fucking maddening.

WORDS STILL MATTER, IDIOTS.

Pence lost in style to me. He let another man become the alpha and take control. If he had facts then he would have looked better but he lost in both arenas for me.
 

Toxi

Banned
I'm convinced that line of attack would have improved Trump/Pence support amongst undecided conservatives.
Evangelicals are already firmly in the Trump camp. The "undecided conservatives" are not them.

The real problem with that line of attack is people are voting for Donald Trump, not Mike Pence, and Donald Trump surprisingly doesn't have a completely ass-backward view of LGBTQ rights. Kaine wanted to make Trump look bad.
 

Toxi

Banned
Is this actually true? I thought I've seen articles that a lot of Evangelicals are struggling with their decision.

Not that I think Clinton and Kaine should cater to them.
White evangelical support is stronger for Trump than Romney, and it's gonna stay high. They don't like Trump, but they'll still vote for him.
 
Kaine started off constantly interrupting Pence to call him out on random bullshit. Pence eventually got visibly uncomfortable because he had no answers to any of what Kaine was saying. Eventually Pence started interrupting just as much as Kaine did, and to "defend" Trump he either lied ("we never said that!" when they very obviously did), or he just straight up threw Trump under the bus (he admitted Trump was not "a polished politician" when defending one of his abhorrent statements).

Kaine was not aggressive in the way that Trump was aggressive. Kaine called out Pence on bullshit and made him squirm over and over as Pence continued to try to avoid defending Trump's shit. Trump, on the other hand, was aggressive by making clownshoes statements like "You've been fighting ISIS your whole life!", "WRONG! WRONG! WRONG!", "WHERE DID YOU FIND THIS? WHERE DID YOU FIND THIS? WHERE DID YOU FIND THIS?", and "I said very mean things to Rosie O'Donnell and she totally deserved it".

Because Trump was fucking stupid. The main takeaway from that debate wasn't Trump being aggressive, the main takeaway was Trump being an ignoramus.

The worst thing people are saying about Kaine is he was rude.

Because Trump was aggressive in the manner of a particularly stupid bull. He interrupted like a buffoon with nonsense, just yelling "WRONG" or dumb schoolyard crap.

Kaine interrupted, but it was with corrections or responses to what Pence was saying.

It absolutely was an issue. Go back in the thread to when the debate first started. Most of us were cringing so hard at Kaine's behavior.

However, Kaine ended up making really solid points, whereas Trump just spewed more lies.

These aren't the same people and there are different expectations. Trump's whole thing is being aggressive. His whole point of even doing these debates now is supposed to be appealing to the Independent voters not behind him and he went full Trump. It's a loss that he couldn't appear cool headed. Even Republicans continue to poll highly that Trump has a poor temperament. He failed to fix that image on the national stage.

Kaine was aggressive *and* and on point with arguments that were largely accurate and substantive. Pence was calmer but offering less substance and lied more frequently.

Being aggressive isn't necessarily an issue, by itself. Being aggressive only to cover for a lack of any substantive argument (like Trump did) is not a good look. And being overly aggressive when you also claim to have the best temperament, is even worse.

Gotcha; thanks all :)
 
I think you'd have to be pretty dim to think that Pence won this debate. Even if you watched it on mute (as some are proudly claiming).
 

Drek

Member
Is this actually true? I thought I've seen articles that a lot of Evangelicals are struggling with their decision.

Not that I think Clinton and Kaine should cater to them.

CBS Poll from June 16th

The poll linked was from before Trump really started to consolidate the conservative base. He was at 62% to Clinton's 17%. He's had white evangelicals in the bag from the jump.

It's Catholics who waffle on him, some polls he's up big, other polls it appears close. If the later is the reality he's already lost.
 

Garlador

Member
Pence has been just terrible on social issues.

Gay Marriage is a slam dunk.

I'd prefer to see more lines of, "Are you guys really considering voting for a ticket with a party that thinks homosexuality is a horrible sin?"

As someone who lives in the south, that's the best thing many people here could hear and they'd vote for him for that alone.
 
My take on the debate

tumblr_mnzv2eH3vn1s8njeuo1_400.gif


Honestly you can tell the difference between Pence and Trump. Pence is a polished politician and he's likely been in plenty of 1 on 1 debates. He was prepped. He wasn't rattled. Kaine's interrupt tactics were actually annoying and lost him some points early imo. However, he kept hammering on how Pence couldn't defend his boss and Pence kept saying he was happy to but never did. Because, frankly, Trump is indefensible.

For Clinton/Kaine, this was a win, even if the overall debate was a draw. He didn't lose anyone they were already voting for, he didn't gain anyone who was already voting for Trump, and it's likely that any remaining fence-sitters are still on the fence.

For Pence personally, this was likely a win. When this whole ticket goes down in flames and the GOP loses the GE and seats in the Senate and party membership, Pence at least can hold his head high that he didn't completely jump on the Crazy Trump Train. He talked to his base, he kept to his policies, he specifically did not defend Trump so that can't be used against him in future elections.
 

Pastry

Banned
I don't buy this idea that Pence will be able to seperate himself from Trump for a future campaign, that ship has sailed.
 
Basically, to the average viewer Pence won. But her's the problem, Pence was fighting the Battle--debating Tim Kaine directly--but Kaine won the war. What I mean by that is, the damage Tim Kaine did to the Trump Campaign will be lasting. He managed to reveal that Pence literally cannot defend his own parties nominee on the world stage. Pence had no answers for the things Trump has said, and at one point outright said "he's not a polished politician" which is the kind of thing that plays well to the Republican base, but for Moderate voters it's bad. Like, really bad. Now a lot of people were questioning this strategy, but I think it's because the Clinton Campaign doesn't think Hillary can go all in on attacking Trump in a debate like Tim Kaine can. Some of the points he brought up and Mike Pence didn't have answers for, will absolutely resurface in Sunday's debate.

The main thing about this is Pence's victory will be short lived. Reports are already coming out that Trump is not happy Pence "upstaged him", and once news networks start running their highlight clips, Kaine is going to sound like the definitive winner, because he has tons of good lines that just cut the Trump Campaign off at the knees. Kaine's main failing was that he was too anxious early on, and seemed almost Trump-esque for the first half of the debate, consistently interrupting Pence, who stayed pretty calm and collected during the whole thing. I will say, Pence maintained his cool, and he looked very professional compared to how Trump looked last week, and that might be why people feel like he won.

At the end of the day I can best describe it as Pence won the debate, and Tim Kaine didn't lose it. There were no "Gotcha" moments for Kaine, and he exposed a massive rift in the Trump Campaign, and kept the focus of the public on the people actually being voted for in November. Pence looked like a very respectable Republican Candidate, so people were alright with saying he won, but it's only because he was spending the entire time fighting against Kaine's attacks on Trump.

Great post but, holy shit, is there any truth to the bolded?
 

Exile20

Member
Pence was looking towards the future and likely realizes the Trump ticket is screwed so he made himself look good and supported Conservative values and policies while doing the very minimal to back Trump but also making himself look good by not falling for any traps and keeping a calm, cool, level head the whole time. Trump got under a lot of peoples skin in the primaries if Pence had been there that may had not have happened, and if Trump runs again in another 4 or 8 years Pence will likely screw him over big time.

Great post but, holy shit, is there any truth to the bolded?


That is what people are saying close to him.
 

Biske

Member
I was just realizing another barb in all of this, Trump and Co are now hammering Kaine on interrupting. But that's the only tactic Trump has in a debate, he can't resist, they are falling into one more hypocrite trap. Amazing.

Kaine out did Trump by his own standards, toughness and aggression. But he did it with facts and intelligence. Trump must hate that. And secretly his supporters as well.
 
How can you even win a debate purely on style when you say almost nothing valid and fail to capably defend your candidate? Pundit class so far up its own ass on this.

People complain and become cynical about politics, then they fucking devolve into this reality show-esque grading on presidential debates, it's fucking maddening.

WORDS STILL MATTER, IDIOTS.

Right. Since when did winning a debate mean simply being a car salesman?

There need to be live fact checkers on these things. What the Republican Party is doing is outrageous. Deny, lie, spin it and make the same claim against their opponent.

"No, you!"
 

Korgill

Member
Amazing how people can consider that you won a debate by doing nothing but denying indisputable facts with video evidence the entire time

Can we get a debate, either VP or Presidential, where the candidates teams are allowed to throw up videos whenever they like? It would be amazing.
 
I was just realizing another barb in all of this, Trump and Co are now hammering Kaine on interrupting. But that's the only tactic Trump has in a debate, he can't resist, they are falling into one more hypocrite trap. Amazing.

Kaine out did Trump by his own standards, toughness and aggression. But he did it with facts and intelligence. Trump must hate that. And secretly his supporters as well.

The next debate is a town hall so they wont be able to nail Trump with that now.
 
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