A fly on the wall: Looking back at Wednesday
night’s VP debate
A photo of Wednesday
night's vice presidential debate. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
The most interesting living thing on
the stage for Wednesday night’s vice presidential debate?
It might have been a fly.
During Wednesday night’s debate
between Vice President Mike Pence and Sen. Kamala Harris, a fly landed on
Pence’s head and hung out for about two minutes. By night’s end, it was
trending on Twitter and had become a part of Joe Biden’s campaign. The New York Times
even wrote about it.
OK, so the fly really wasn’t the most
important thing that happened during a 90-minute debate that discussed
plenty of meaningful topics. But the fact that we were talking about it at
all was a sign that this really was a more normal political debate —
certainly much more normal than the free-for-all fiasco we saw in last
week’s Donald Trump-Joe Biden debate.
As NBC’s Savannah Guthrie said, “We
had a debate, not a debacle.”
Civil was the word of the night.
As soon as it was over, CNN’s Wolf
Blitzer said, “There you have it, two candidates largely refraining from
the fireworks, certainly a contrast to President Trump’s performance last
week in the first presidential debate. Tonight, it was much more civil.”
PBS’s Judy Woodruff said the same,
calling it “much more civil.”
NBC’s Lester Holt said, “Fair to say
a lot of people (were) holding their breath after last week wondering what
the tone would be in this debate. Largely civil.”
Civil, yes. A tad predictable, too.
But not boring. There was substance. There was meaning. Both candidates
landed their share of blows, especially when attacking their opponents, but
less so when defending their own running mate’s record.
What really stood out, however, was
how both candidates dodged the questions from moderator Susan Page, the
Washington bureau chief for USA Today. Oh, the candidates talked a lot. And
said a lot of interesting things. Just not a lot about what Page asked. It
was as if her questions were about apples and the answers were about
oranges. Harris, most notably, would not answer a question about packing
the Supreme Court and Pence would not answer, well, a lot of questions.
CNN’s David Axelrod called Pence a “serial evader.”
John Dickerson of CBS News said, “As
they teach you in debate school, you answer the question you want to, not
the one that’s asked.”
And Pence did plenty of that, often
circling back to the last question while avoiding the question asked by
Page. As The Washington Post’s Jonathan Capehart said on PBS, “He has
mastered the breathy earnestness of saying nothing.”
Blitzer noted, “Both candidates
clearly did their best to dodge important serious tough questions from
Susan Page, questions that they didn’t want to answer. She asked very good
questions.”
And that brings us to Susan Page …
Page’s so-so night
Vice presidential
debate moderator Susan Page. (Justin Sullivan/Pool via AP)
Blitzer is right. Page did ask a lot
of great questions — about everything from the coronavirus to climate
change to racial tensions to the economy. Too bad the candidates, especially
Pence, didn’t actually answer a lot of them. But don’t just blame the
candidates. Blame the moderator, too. Instead of going back and telling the
candidates, “Great. Now would you like to answer the questions I just asked
you?” Page simply moved on.
As Angie Drobnic Holan — my Poynter
colleague and editor-in-chief of PolitiFact — tweeted, “Moderators force candidates to
answer questions by refusing to move on to the next question. This tactic
is not an unknown secret in the world of journalism.”
That’s where Page dropped the ball.
As a veteran journalist, Page should have done better.
ABC’s Martha Raddatz said, “I think
one of the things is you really do have to listen to what they are saying,
and then follow up. And we seem to move pretty quickly on to the next
question. There were very few answers to questions that Susan Page asked
and they were well-crafted questions. But you really didn't get a lot of
answers.”
Page also, far too often, let Pence
in particular go well beyond his allotted time to speak. Instead of
forcefully shutting Pence down, she politely just kept repeating “thank
you, Mr. Vice President” over and over again while Pence ignored her and
kept talking. Dickerson called it a “slow jazz kind of interruption.”
CNN's Van Jones called Pence the
“mansplainer-in-chief.” Pence might have kept talking over Page because he
knew she wasn’t going to effectively stop him. It was during these moments
when I wish moderators were given an airhorn to simply blast away or drown
out whoever is ignoring the rules.
On Fox Business, anchor Neil Cavuto
said, “I lost count how many times (Page) had to interrupt to say ‘thank
you,’ but it seems she did interrupt the vice president a lot more than she
did Kamala Harris. It could have been that Kamala Harris was keeping better
time.”
That appeared to be the case. Either
way, it was something Page could never get a handle on.
CNN media reporter Oliver Darcy
wrote, “Frankly, it was inexcusable that Page did not come better prepared
to enforce the agreed upon rules — especially given how last week’s debate
went off the rails.”
But at least this week we had
entertainment in the form of The Fly.
“I do want to say it is the first
debate I have seen with a bug crawling around on one of the candidates’
head for two to three minutes,” Fox News’ Chris Wallace said, “and I don’t
think we can let this evening go without mentioning that.”
In the end, at least the debate was,
well, normal. And we needed normal after the presidential debate.
As Washington Post opinion columnist Alyssa Rosenberg
wrote, “By comparison, the vice-presidential debate was the
political equivalent of a dose of Ambien. Sure, the candidates interrupted
each other and talked over moderator Susan Page. Yes, there was
passive-aggressive head-shaking and the candidates taking swipes at their
opponent’s past votes and positions. But even the aspects of politics that
generally feel off-putting had an oddly soothing quality.”
Three quick last thoughts about Thursday
night’s debate and coverage
- If you flipped back and
forth between Fox News and MSNBC, you would have found two very
different reactions as to how Wednesday’s debate went. Then again, is
anyone surprised by that?
- I get that CNN likes having
Rick Santorum, the former Republican senator from Pennsylvania, on its
coverage to bring a GOP perspective to its panel. But, because of all
the contentious back and forth between him and the rest of the panel,
it’s neither good nor informative TV. In fact, it’s uncomfortable TV.
- Did Wednesday’s debate
change many votes? Probably not. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t
important. It was 90 minutes of two candidates talking to millions
upon millions of Amerians about the future of our country. Let’s not
dismiss these debates as something that doesn't matter.
Oh, one more thing
For more coverage of Wednesday’s
debate, be sure to check out PolitiFact and FactChat, led by the International
Fact-Checking Network.
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