Following the first Presidential debate, which can only be described as catastrophic, it was hard to anticipate what the mood for Wednesday’s Vice Presidential debate between Vice President Mike Pence (R) and Senator Kamala Harris (D) would be. That night, I entered an on-campus watch party, hopeful for a calmer and more civilized exchange of words and ideas —free of snide remarks and interruptions. Susan Page of USA Today assumed the seat of moderator this time around. However, her role resembled a Kindergarten teacher corralling students more than an adult overseeing a mature conversation, but she maintained her composure and delivered a series of thoughtful questions and topics.
In terms of decorum, the Vice Presidential candidates proved themselves to be ever so slightly more polite than their Presidential counterparts. Instead of bickering like children on a playground, their demeanors more closely resembled petty, passive aggressive older siblings. Another distinguishing feature was the new precautions taken against the transmission of Covid-19: plexiglass shields divided the candidates, and everyone in the audience wore masks. These alterations to the debate stage were made in light of President Donald Trump’s recent diagnosis with the virus, which also inspired the first question of the night. When asked about the ongoing response to the pandemic and how the Biden administration might react, Kamala Harris outlined a different plan moving forward and chastised the Trump administration for their omittance of information about the virus as early as January of this year. In response, Pence continued to toot President Trump’s horn, despite the uptick in cases and virus-related hospitalizations in the past week. He deflected blame by praising the resilience of the American people in face of the hysteria, a pattern which emerged throughout the night and ensured that Pence himself never once took credit for his failure as the head of the White House Coronavirus Task Force.
The set of questions and responses that I found most interesting and insightful to the stances of each platform were focused on Breonna Taylor’s case and the relationship between policing and racial inequality. I was eager to hear how Harris, a former District Attorney who bears much responsibility for placing millions of people of color behind bars, would tackle such a subject. Her talkback here pleasantly surprised me —she honored Ms. Taylor and was adamant that an instance of injustice had occurred. She did not shy away from the flaws in the policing system, although she slipped in a “well, not all cops are bad” note. Pence, on the other hand, followed in President Trump’s footsteps and failed to admit that there is a deeply rooted history of racial prejudice and violence that continues to define our nation. He even secured a laugh from the crowd by assuring viewers that Donald Trump does not harbor biases himself —in fact, he has Jewish grandchildren!
Throughout the evening, each candidate seemed to latch onto a handful of scapegoats, which were often used to turn the conversation away from the question at hand. Pence in particular called out terms like "fracking" and increasing taxes, effectively evading a number of the queries posed to him. We know where Pence stands on the issue of abortion, but he failed to explicate on the question of what a Supreme Court vacancy might mean for Roe v. Wade. While Harris was surely repetitive, her diction was clear and pointed. She showed dynamism in her expressions —sometimes smirking at Pence’s remarks and frequently gazing into the camera in order to speak directly to the audience. These candid moments of address were some of her best. As Biden was in last week’s debate, she was unafraid to address the audience with rhetorical questions and emotional directives. Something unique in Harris’ diction was her focus on a younger audience, specifically college students, like the group that surrounded me that night. She used this when referencing the economy, for example, asking us to consider what jobs might be waiting for us upon graduation. Her most honest plea, however, was a simple one: “Vote.”
Though the Vice Presidential debate bore less resemblance to an SNL skit than the presidential one that preceded it, there are a few highlights of the evening we can be sure to look out for in parody: Harris’ smirk, the incessant and irrelevant references to fracking, and, of course, that pesky fly.