There’s a lot of punditry about tonight’s debate between the running mates, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Ohio Senator J.D. Vance. I’m no exception, here’s my take in Newsweek. There’s a lot at stake for Vance, who really needs a win. Not so much for the campaign, it’s tough to argue the VP debate will make much difference to the election (although it’s a coin flip, so you never know.) Vance needs the win for his own future. Otherwise, he could end up like Dan Quayle, exiled to political ignominy.
But I also wanted to talk about what the political debates are really about. They aren’t in any meaningful sense policy discussions. They aren’t really even debates. Nor can they be said to be somehow representative of the actual work of a politician. Otherwise, we’d have made my old friend Patton Oswalt president. (I will name drop shamelessly!)
Political debates are strange combination of trial by combat and the final question in a job interview: Is there anything you’d like to tell us about yourself?
According to the late Richard N. Bolles, career counselor extraordinaire and author of the renowned What Color is Your Parachute? the purpose of these questions is to address the interviewer’s fear that they don’t really know how to interview and that hiring this person will be a big mistake.
The debates are a chance to get a good look at the candidates and assess them—outside of a venue of their choosing. It is all about vibes. Do we like the way the candidate sounds and looks. Do we want to see them on TV or hear them on the radio for the next four years. The debate may not be test of the skills needed to be president, but if they can’t manage the 90 minutes or two hours of give and take, they probably are not up to the workload of the presidency.
For the vice presidency, it is particularly odd. Choosing a running mate is the nominee’s first presidential decision. The the VP debate is evaluating whether we like the person we are evaluating hired.
It cannot be said that that the debates are good test, but it has had its successes (and its failures). The first debate between Trump and Biden showed us that maybe Biden wasn’t up for the gig anymore. I’d say Harris’ performance in her debate with Trump dispelled, most sexist, notions that she isn’t up for it. This pick from Jon Stewart’s America (THE BOOK): A Citizen’s Guide to Democracy Inaction epitomizes, to me at least, what the debates are really about. They are a last ditch effort to see if we are about to make a huge mistake.