Wednesday, October 2, 2024, 07:55
It is very possible that the best definition of the debate between vice presidential candidates held this Tuesday (early morning on Wednesday in Spain) in New York was made by the ‘Boston Globe’. Tim Walz and JD Vance are two “good soldiers.” This American media wonders if the face-to-face will have left a “mark” on the millions of viewers who have connected with CBS and emphasizes: “Actually it wasn’t about them, it was about their potential bosses and the marked differences in their visions for the country«.
The Minnesota governor said at one point during the night that he and his Republican opponent were having a “healthy” dialogue. Virtually almost all columnists in the United States agree that, unlike the previous debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, tonight’s debate took place in a “respectful” manner and even with moments of mutual recognition between the two candidates. “In this bitter and unpleasant political environment, those brief moments of agreement may have been disconcerting” for the audience, which has seen two politicians arguing without getting upset less than five weeks before the elections.
Although also, for that same reason, there are those who ask for more beer. “The debate, largely civil and possibly quite informative, underscored one thing: We need another presidential debate,” says Doug Schoen, an analyst for the conservative Fox News channel. The veteran journalist believes that the two candidates “did not innovate at all” nor “did they announce radical changes in traditional policies”, but he assures that their meeting was of capital importance because “it was civil, it was informative and included a surprisingly high level of of bipartisanship that has been notably absent in the 2024 presidential race.
Who did it better? Broadly speaking, the media agree that JD Vance was a surprise because he “seemed to take the trouble to present himself as a relatively standard conservative Republican.” An image that the British ‘Times’ also recognizes from abroad by admitting that the Republican candidate offered a “friendly” profile who got involved in issues where his opponent could take control, such as the right to abortion and immigration.
In this intervention, very distant from a history that records gloomy opinions about women who choose not to have children or Haitian migrants, David Firestone, of the progressive ‘The New York Times, affirms that the conservative senator’s ability to “turn on and to turn off the extravagance, to sound reasonable, to disguise a bitter and hollow core with talk learned at Yale. That was the version of himself that Vance presented to the CBS audience, and it was “a far cry from what he sounds like when he campaigns in front of MAGA-supporting crowds.”
Question of experience
Regarding Vance, there is a general agreement that he has been able to take advantage of his experience in front of the cameras or in his participation in right-wing and far-right podcasts and in political events. Tim Walz, on the other hand, has been perceived as more insecure. Nor has it helped him that shortly before arriving at the CBS News studio, rumors were leaked that some advisors on the Democratic team doubted his aptitude for debates or interviews. Walz is a veteran teacher and coach accustomed to long-winded explanations and answers and not to the short, visceral and superficial messages of contemporary politics.
«Walz did not have the impressive performance that his supporters had expected. “The sly Midwestern charm that has been so effective in his speeches and campaign ads was missing, replaced by a nervous intensity that led to bewildering responses and missed opportunities to remind viewers that Trump is unfit for office,” consider Firestone. ‘The Washington Post’ also maintains that the Democrat “seemed nervous, especially at first,” and also did not “often explain what he was talking about in a way that was understandable to casual viewers.” Even so, he praises that one of “the most interesting strategies” of Kamala Harris’ electoral partner “consisted not so much of attacking Vance but of presenting him as someone who could really be reasonable, in contrast to Trump.”
Ross Dougthat, opinion leader of ‘The New York Times’, says he understands after watching the face to face the reason why Donald Trump chose JD Vance as his vice president. The Ohio senator “is giving one of the best debate performances by a Republican presidential or vice presidential candidate in recent memory and is defending Trump’s record far more effectively than Trump has ever been able to do.” ».
Dougthat believes that Tim Walz seemed “out of place” in several passages while “Vance’s performance has included a dose of conscious humanization, an attempted reintroduction to his blue-collar past, and a surprising personal biography after weeks of attacks.” effective Democrats to his right-wing comments. But above all it has simply been an effective defense of the case against the Biden-Harris Administration.
The governor of Minnesota ended the night in a pizzeria in New York with his wife. Between bites of pepperoni, Walz responded to the journalists who accompanied him to Justino’s Pizza and followed the first results of the debate. Aside from the insecurities, the general view of the Democratic candidate for vice president is that he is the close relative that every family wants. A reliable, affable Midwestern individual, given to humanizing stories with morals, like the one in which he recounted his son’s experience as a witness to a shooting on a sports field. It was one of the most shocking revelations of the night.
The popular survey by ‘The Washington Post’ gives Walz the best score in his proposals on how to reduce the tragedies of school massacres, which have almost become an epidemic in the United States, or the improvement of health care. Instead, he prefers Vance when he offers his point of view on migration and climate change, or defends that the regulation of abortion remains in the hands of each State. The Financial Times found it beneficial that the two candidates spent time discussing the country’s economy and how to improve the lives of Americans. And other commentators affirm that the moment where the differences between Democrats and Republicans became clear came at the end, when Vance denied that Donald Trump had lost the 2020 elections.
#Walzs #insecurities #Vances #kind #version #standard #conservative #Basque #Journal