Veep Matters

By all accounts Mike Pence vanquished Willie Brown's girlfriend with ease and verve, but in a respectful, friendly Midwestern sort of way. We know Pence won because the media is accusing him of 'masplaining'.  Also, Fox News' Cunt emeritus, Chris Wallace, thinks Harris did fine. 

But does Pence's victory matter? 

Readers will recall that we've long maintained Veep debates don't matter, ask Dan Quayle.

We've spent a lot of time this week testing our poll thesis. If the polls are right, Trump is toast. Can they all be wrong? So we don't think it's unfair to test our Veep thesis. We say Lloyd Bentsen's humiliation of Dan Quayle didn't matter. But Bush/Quayle was going to win no-matter what. The Federalist's Molly Hemingway tweeted last night that Pence reassured conservative voters in the 2016 Veep debate. Biden beat Ryan in 2012, it is said. That's certainly a correlation. Did Biden's win not help Obama across the finish line? Powerline argues that Veep debates help.

So maybe Pence's steady performance and vociferous defense of the administration's Covid policies reset the narrative and will mark the beginning of the Trump comeback.

In Which we Call Chris Wallace a Very Bad Word

This morning we mostly remember Biden's pastey white face. 

Here's what we wrote for Inforos. 

We hadn't watched a presidential debate since Bush/Kerry round one. An hour after it was over we had a sinking feeling that Kerry (S-Paris) had won.  Last night we waited for that same feeling. It never came. When it was all over we chatted with Mrs. Stroock for a few minutes and then took ourselves for a walk. By the time we returned our thoughts had taken form.

It was a draw. 

But the more we think about it, the worse Biden looked. Those quotes about not building any more coal and gas fired plants are going to hurt him with working class voters. Rejecting the Green Nude Eel and declaring 'I am the party' will hurt Biden with Ms. Venezuela and the rest of the Wacky Woke. Biden did not look good at the podium, sighing, laughing, calling Trump a clown, telling him to shut up, etc, etc. Joe lost his temper a few times. As we noted after Joe's last debate with Bernie, 'God, he thinks he's good at this.'

Not until afterwards did we consider the press and public's revulsion at the debate. We ourselves are having to explain to our 13 year old that debates don't traditionally look like that. We think we may show her Reagan-Carter, or or Bush-Gore. If they cancel the other debates as some are suggesting, that's just fine with this blog.

One other note, and you people know where this is going. Trump debated Biden and moderator Chris Wallace, who ran interference for Joe all night. Chris Wallace is a cunt.

Debate Expert Stroock tells Readers what Will Happen

Alfred Thayer Mahan was an American naval theorist who advocated navies seek a 'decisive battle' to win naval superiority in one fell swoop. The Japanese tried this and ended up at Midway. Nimitz was more interested in incremental naval campaigns with clear objectives and ended up in Tokyo Bay.

Debate fetishists want the same thing. One decisive debate that alters and decides the race. The Kennedy/Nixon thing is and always has been fake news. Lloyd Benson landed the greatest debate zinger ever and went home at the end of the campaign. W slowly ground down Algore just by being competent and letting Gore be himselff; an overbearing, know it all, jerk. 

About the only decisive debate in our lifetime that  was 1980, Reagan vs Carter. Reagan looked competent, and then just sliced and diced Carter's record. 'Are you better off now, than you were four years ago

If the debate happens, and there's still time for Joe to pull out, we expect Biden to not drool all over himself or crap his Depends, and we expect Trump to be Trump. The real impact will take a few days to make itself felt.

Call a 'lid' on the Debate

Stephen L Miller notes:

Today Pence is in Wisconsin. Trump will be in North Carolina and Florida, and for the 9th day this month Joe Biden will be under a lid and at home.

— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) September 24, 2020

#Biden has 'called a lid' on his campaign already today. He's definitely running a low energy, Matlock is on at 3 PM and I need my nap before then, campaign. 

There's a tendency among the GOP to think the Dem's are up to something nefarious, that there are plans within plans that we just don't see. But it's also possible they're just this incompetent.

The Dems claim Biden is doing debate prep. Bullshit, as the president would say. One can prepr, say, on the flight from Wilmington to Detroit. Unless Biden needs his nap time.

In his last debate against Bernie Sanders, Biden was more or less ok.

Here's what we wrote about Joe last winter:

Biden was tested during Sunday Night’s debate. For once, Bernie Sanders attacked him directly. But voters are usually uninterested in twenty-five-year-old votes and the minutiae of campaign finance laws. Biden kept listing the things he would do, prefacing each point with ‘First’ and running on until ‘Second’ and so on. Sanders, who has been saying the exact same socialist things since 2016, didn’t really land a decent punch. Biden certainly got the better of the debate and almost certainly won the nomination, despite everything. Watching the man during the debate, one hand on the podium, the other in his pocket while he smirked at Sanders, one got the sense that Biden thinks he’s good at this.

Sanders is a wimp. He never had the guts to really punch Joe in the face like Harris did. Trump will do that every time he speaks, were Biden to actually attend the debate.