Marked by congeniality, Walz-Vance debate a polar opposite of acrimonious Harris-Trump encounter

Expected fireworks at the vice presidential debate on Tuesday night ended up a damp squib as the two rivals avoided personal attacks and even expressed mild agreement on some issues. The 20-year age difference between Vance at 40 and Walz at 60, is a reversal from the presidential, where Trump is 78 to Harris, 59. Harris and Trump hovered over the debate like ethereal presences whose performances in office the debaters had to defend - on immigration, inflation, foreign policy, and energy. Walz, the balding avuncular former teacher and football coach, who proclaimed his middle-class background, was more tense, speaking with his hands and making dramatic facial expressions. Vance, the bearded 40-year-old, suave self-made millionaire venture capitalist, stressed the depths of abject poverty he grew up in with a mother who was a drug addict and a grandmother who couldn't afford to heat their home in winter. His performance was different too, from the scorch-earth rhetoric of Trump and a contrast to his pugilistic persona on the campaign trail. Vance put on a measured and often genial performance, saying at one point, "If Tim Walz is the next vice president, he'll have my prayers, he'll have my best wishes, and he'll have my help whenever he wants it". Walz said, "I've enjoyed tonight's debate, and I think there was a lot of commonality here." "Me too, man," Vance responded. The congeniality was perhaps a disappointment to the extremes of both parties who wanted them to go for the jugular. They seem to agree on some aspects of the housing crisis, on childcare and on reducing gun violence, but not on the solutions. On the extremely divisive issue of legal abortions, Vance tried to put on a compassionate face, without ceding ground on his opposition to it but accepting his state's referendum backing it. But there were tense moments, too. At one point the moderators cut off the microphone as they squabbled on the immigration issue. "The audience can't hear you because your mics are cut," Margaret Brennan, a moderator, remarked with amusement. Some sparks flew over the January 6, 2021 riots when Congress was to endorse President Biden's election. Vance refused to admit that Trump lost the 2020 election and said, "Tim, I'm focused on the future". He went on to talk about Harris censoring statements about the 2020 Covid situation characterising it as a threat to democracy. Walz retorted, "That's a damning non-answer" Vance shot back, "It's a damning non-answer for you to not talk about censorship." Although there were substantive policy discussions, most of the time, they bobbed and ducked hard questions. The moderators brought up their past statements as a challenge to their integrity and both humbly admitted their errors but only after failed evasions. Walz falsely claimed that he was in Hong Kong when the Communist regime crushed the Tiananmen Square democracy protest and that he entered China to work as a teacher. After trying to obfuscate it by speaking of his community service and acceptance, he finally admitted that he misspoke and was sometimes a "knucklehead". Vance was asked about his assertion that Trump could be "American Hitler" and had "failed to deliver on economic populism". He admitted, "I've also been extremely open about the fact that I was wrong about Donald Trump." But he blamed the media for it: "I was wrong, first of all, because I believed some of the media stories that turned out to be dishonest fabrications of his record." Vance, who speaks highly of his wife Usha, said while debating childcare, "I'm married to a beautiful woman who is an incredible mother to our three beautiful kids but is also a very, very brilliant corporate litigator, and I'm so proud of her. But being a working mom, even for somebody with all of the advantages of my wife, is extraordinarily difficult." (Arul Louis can be contacted at arul.l@ians.in)