Donald Trump seems likely to lose this election, and if Wednesday night’s vice presidential debate ends up being important to the outcome, that would be a freakish and historically bizarre conclusion.
But viewed in isolation, Vice President Mike Pence’s performance was a master class in how to play a weak hand strongly. Liberals ought to pay attention to the way he outperformed Sen. Kamala Harris because it’s a reminder that not every Republican politician is as inept as Trump.
What Pence did is not that complicated. Time after time, exchange after exchange, regardless of the question, he relentlessly focused on popular Republican positions and unpopular Democratic ones — positioning the Trump/Pence ticket as the moderate choice compared to Biden/Harris, which he cast as a radical and risky alternative.
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