The Trump campaign received a much-needed boost Tuesday night. Here’s a report from the American Spectator:

“Did you work on that a long time?” That Reaganesque rejoinder from Mike Pence – one of many – effectively put Tim Kaine in his place during a debate that exposed the depths of the Hillary campaign’s demagogic cheapness.

Pence looked like a statesman; Kaine, rudely interrupting him for much of the debate, looked like a clumsy hatchet man and shameless party hack.

Kaine’s labored lines and sweaty lunges contrasted embarrassingly with Pence’s smooth and substantive debate performance. Pence deftly ignored much of Kaine’s immature invective and directed the audience’s attention to Hillary’s failed record and the clear themes of the Trump campaign.

Kaine devoted most of his energy to rattling off his opposition research, much of it too insiderish and transparently canned to impress anyone. Pence, speaking much more slowly and authoritatively, looked directly at the camera (something Kaine never did) and reiterated basic points about Hillary’s tax-and-spend policies and feckless foreign policy. That proved more effective than any point-by-point rebuttal could have. Pence deftly answered the litany of accusations against Trump by noting that Kaine was indulging in the very “insult-driven campaign” he pretended to find so shocking in Trump.

Both men pretty much ignored the debate moderator. She dutifully tried to tilt the debate in the Democrat’s favor but Mr Kaine’s clumsy, interrupting style negated that.

Of course, insufferable pundits, who last week were whining about Trump “taking the bait,” criticized Pence for “not defending Trump” by refusing to take Kaine’s bait. It was a wise choice by Pence, who commanded the debate through his calm re-directing of it back to serious issues. Even the moderator, who never asked Kaine any pointed questions, found his off-topic trivialities and obsession with Trump’s tax returns tiresome enough to correct him at one point and say: “The question was about Aleppo, Senator.”

In the first presidential debate, Mr Trump’s error was in going for the bait laid out via Mrs Clinton’s needling of him. Kaine tried to replicate that tactic and Pence showed how to handle it.

Kaine, stuffed with weeks of memorized cheap shots, began to short-circuit a bit under such corrections and Pence’s steady presence. While an irritated-looking Kaine was trying to catch his breath after one of his extended attacks on Trump, a cool Pence simply noted that Hillary had called much of the country a “basket of deplorables.” So low was Kaine that he claimed Trump cared more about his tax returns than the troops – a slur so over-the-top that all Pence had to do was shake his head sadly.

The vice presidential debate provided a national audience with their first real look at Mr Kaine. Given Hillary’s age and obvious ill-health, Kaine might well become President. After Tuesday people won’t be reassured by that prospect.

The press purrs over Kaine as a “man of faith” and a model of decency. In this debate, he came off as a lying lawyer and soulless pol, willing to sell off his scruples for the sake of a seat at Hillary’s table. He said that his Catholic faith would have no relevance to his public life, even as he touted it as proof of his character. Talk about faith without works.

Typical of his opportunistic mischaracterizations, he said that the Church opposes the death penalty (it never officially has), said that he agrees with that position, and then said that he proceeded to execute a bunch of people as former governor of Virginia, because, after all, he is just an instrument in the hands of the people and he must enforce the laws they want. No sooner had he said that than he was extolling Roe v. Wade, which took the issue of abortion away from the people. Would he enforce their will on that issue? Not a chance.

Pence made him even more uncomfortable by pointing out gently that as Hillary’s flak his supposedly fervent faith now coexists with a stance in favor of partial-birth abortion and taxpayer-financed abortions. So much for Kaine’s touchy-feely Seamless Garment-style Catholicism. He is more worried about cops frisking criminals than abortionists engaging in near-infanticide.

Pence, who talked about adoption as an alternative to abortion and thoughtfully discussed the sanctity of life, made Kaine’s partisan gibbering look as ignoble as it is.

During several exchanges, Pence turned what Kaine and Hillary consider strengths into weaknesses. After Kaine launched into a windy attack on Putin and a tendentious description of Trump’s admiration for him, Pence, instead of engaging his lies, simply drew attention to Hillary’s disastrously ineffective “reset” with Putin. Trump didn’t turn him into a powerful world leader; she and Obama did.

Brilliant.

In debates, less is more, as Pence showed. Against a flailing, gabbing, demagogic opponent, it is better to step back and let the audience see that the person who talks the most often says the least. Come Sunday, Trump would do well to imitate his running mate.

Yes. If he can. The Donald is intuitive and mercurial, Mike Pence is steady and sensible. It is a good pairing, although after Tuesday night’s performance some are wishing the roles were reversed. But no. We need a change agent as President, while Trump needs a solid deputy.

Mr Pence’s clear win was signaled, backhandedly of course, by the Washington Post in their summation of the debate. Near the end of their article they called for an end to Vice Presidential debates. They wouldn’t have done that if Kaine had won or at least could be spun as a winner.

So there. The much-needed boost. Mr Trump was damaged by first debate and allowed himself to be driven off-message afterward. It doesn’t matter if that was a media-induced ambush and a media-enhanced Hillary win. Polls follow conventional wisdom. People like to identify with whoever they think is winning. Trump profited from this dynamic during the primaries and is suffering from it now. The Real Clear Politics average of polls now stands at Clinton +3.7, with Trump trending negative in the key swing states. Apply a three point margin of error, and – were the election held today – Clinton would score something between a very narrow win and a substantial victory. Under those circumstances even a small boost is welcome.

Coming are two more presidential debates. Probably there will be more October Surprises. A hurricane looks set to at least brush the east coast with all the hysteria attendant thereto. Who knows what else will happen.

Meanwhile Hillary remains Hillary. She lies reflexively. Her latest is “I don’t recall joking about droning Julian Assange” – this in response to a leaked email recounting how she suggested in a meeting that the pesky head of Wikileaks be terminated from above. Her denial is a double deception. First there’s the formulaic dodge about hazy memory – a trick she used 27 times during her softball FBI interview, for example. Then there’s the “joked” part. The leaked email makes it clear she wasn’t joking. She’s deadly serious about people who get in her way. Maybe that has something to do with why Mr Assange abruptly cancelled his planned announcement on Tuesday of what we were led to believe would be devastating new data on Hillary’s misdeeds. He’s been intimidated.

Me, I’m worried about Mr Trump’s prospects. I don’t like him being behind in the race with only a month left until the election.

– Tacitus

Copyright 2016 Tacitus
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