Members of the production crew inspect glass on stage to serve as a barrier to protect against the spread of COVID-19 as preparations take place Tuesday, Oct. 6, for the vice presidential debate at the University of Utah on Wednesday, Oct. 7. (Julio Cortez, Associated Press)
Pence dodged hard questions in the VP debate, and Harris let him
Lisa Keen | Keen News Service
lisakeen@mac.com
The vice presidential debate Wednesday night, Oct. 7, was a draw: Vice President Mike Pence completely dodged difficult questions, and U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris — and moderator Susan Page — let him.
The winner was a random insect that landed prominently on top of Pence’s head and, unbeknownst to Pence, distracted the television audience from whatever the vice president was rambling on about over his allotted time.
“The fly got better reviews than the cloying, smarmy condescending performance of Mike Pence,” said Nadine Smith, executive director of Equality Florida.
Lori Lightfoot, Chicago’s lesbian mayor, posted on Twitter that Harris “brilliantly laid down the hammer on the failed leadership” of Trump. But others said Harris failed to push back at Pence on his claims that she and Biden were planning to “stack the court” with liberals and want to “change the rules” around who should get to nominate a replacement for the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
After completely ignoring two questions from the moderator, Pence, in a moment of unselfconscious irony, asked that “the record show” that Harris failed to answer a question.
Later, Pence claimed not to know what Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court, Amy Coney Barrett, thinks about abortion. President Trump has always made clear that being anti-abortion is a key factor in making his pick.
“Mike Pence is someone who is comfortable saying things that are utterly false with a completely straight face,” Pete Buttigieg told MSNBC.
Buttigieg, himself a strong contender for the Democratic presidential nomination at one time, helped Harris prepare for the vice presidential debate. He debated her in practice sessions, serving as a surrogate for Pence. Buttigieg is not only a proven debater himself, but, as former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, is familiar with Pence, the former governor of Indiana.
Log Cabin Republicans founder Rich Tafel said he thought both sides did a good job Wednesday night.
“I think Pence speaking over his time and the female host hurt him there,” Tafel said. “I think Harris speaking directly about not raising taxes and not opposing fracking helped Biden with those voters.
“I am not personally a fan of either candidate, but I felt Harris made moderate swing voters more comfortable with her and the ticket. I have a long, antagonistic history with Pence based on his anti-gay rhetoric and find his speaking style smarmy and canned,” Tafel added.
But Tafel also dinged Harris for her “refusal” to answer Pence’s question about whether she and Biden plan to increase the size of the Supreme Court.
“That was a low point for Harris. They need to answer this question,” Tafel said.
Smith said she thought Harris hit Pence hard “on the issues people care about most — the absolute lethal failure to protect Americans from COVID.”
MSNBC’s lesbian political commentator Rachel Maddow said she doesn’t think the debate will “move the needle” at all. CNN’s openly-gay political commentator Keith Boykin agreed.
“Vice President Mike Pence needed to score a knockout to change the momentum of the campaign,” Boykin said. “Instead, he repeated empty platitudes and talking points that contradicted the truth about the coronavirus and the economy that Americans have watched with their own eyes nearly all year long.
“In the end, nothing that happened in the debate did anything to move the needle. And that’s bad news for Donald Trump,” he added.
Still Boykin gave Harris high marks: “Going into Wednesday night’s debate, I thought the expectations for Sen. Kamala Harris were unreasonably high,” he said. “By the end of the night, however, she met them. She prosecuted the case against Donald Trump. She defended Joe Biden and her own record. And she managed to do it all while walking a racist, sexist tightrope that holds professional Black women to unfair standards of decorum.”
Buttigieg agreed, telling MSNBC that Harris made a “powerful case.” He criticized Pence for having “tried to create a picture that everything’s fine.”
“He’s perfectly happy to say something that’s not true … and make it sound as if everything’s going great,” he said, adding that he doesn’t think Pence succeeded.
Some political observers said they thought Pence didn’t look well. Pence had recently been on the front row of a crowded White House event to announce Trump’s nomination of Barrett to Ginsburg’s seat. Soon after that event, President Trump and numerous others at the event tested positive for the corona virus, and Trump was briefly hospitalized.
“What stands out to me from this debate was the repeated blatant falsehoods by Vice President Pence,” said Lorri Jean, executive officer of the Los Angeles LGBT Center. “When national leaders lie repeatedly, saying one thing and doing another, it should alarm LGBT people greatly, because it means we are at grave risk.”
“The most ominous content for LGBT people,” Jean said, “was his views on religious freedom, which would completely decimate protections for LGBT people in healthcare, in employment, in the recognition of our families (including the ability to adopt children) and more. That, alone, should have LGBT people running to the polls to support Biden and Harris.”
© 2020 Keen News Service. All rights reserved.
I love Biden and Harris, and have already voted for them, but I cannot understand why they don’t take the opportunity of a debate to “prove” that the Trump administration gets an “F” for handling of the pandemic in the U.S. They “claim” it, but never show evidence. That allows Trump and Pence to just say, “Not true, we’ve done amazingly well, saving millions of lives.” That’s false. Numbers don’t like. If the US had scored just a grade of “C” (average with the rest of the countries of the world), we would have had 1.5 million infections instead of 7.8 million . . . and we would have had 45.604 deaths instead of 217,056. There is no debating those numbers. I’m not saying it’s 100% Trump’s fault, but he was certainly in the best position to lift us from a. score of “F” to at least a “C” (average with the rest of the world). Heaven forbid we should ever aspire to an “A” (attained by New Zealand, Senegal, Denmark, Iceland, Saudi Arabia, Belgium, and others). Harris is an attorney. She should know the importance of PROVING a claim of incompetence. Missed opportunity.
I urge anyone who really wants TRUTH, and it is on film to go to ProjectVeritas.com. They investigate corruption by elected officials. You selected Saudi Arabia as an A, but you obviously did not do your homework. Because, Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) people in Saudi Arabia face legal challenges not experienced by non-LGBT residents. Both male and female same-sex sexual activity is illegal. LGBT rights are not recognized by the government of Saudi Arabia. The Saudi social mores and laws are heavily influenced by ultra-conservative Muslims. Homosexuality and being transgender are widely seen as immoral and indecent activities, and the law punishes acts of homosexuality or cross-dressing with punishments of fines, public whipping, beatings, vigilante attacks, chemical castrations, prison time up to life, capital punishment and other forms of torture. I guess you’re okay that China is what caused COVID-19, which kept it hidden, and after doctors began speaking out these same doctors ‘mysteriously disappeared. You are okay with Communism, Marxism and any other ism you can think of.
President Reagan was quoted with the following:
“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”
You went on to mention about Harris being an attorney. True she was a prosecutor, but you had best ask HOW she got that job. Former [corrupt] mayor of San Francisco Willie Brown admitted he and Kamala Harris slept together, and how she got her position as Atty. Gen. in CA. He even went on to say that he did not see a problem with it.
Once again we see how many times democrats are being exposed all across the nation as the new Democrat-Socialist Party. Only those with the same belief will vote a Biden/Harris ticket.
More and more LGBT communities are realizing at just how destructive the democrat party has become.
The last point I would ask (if you have children, grandchildren, siblings, etc…) What legacy are you leaving behind for them? Freedom or Tyranny? We will see at the polls who people want as their next president. Let’s hope the democrats that feel cheating is the answer will be exposed, before any ballot count, as we’re seeing all across the nation of those being arrested for voter fraud.
I meant to type: “Numbers don’t lie.”