Kaine interrupted Pence 72 times. Think about that for a moment folks, 72 times. Kaine's strategy seemed to have been this: "I'll interrupt Pence every time he speaks the truth and then Quijano will finish him off with tough questions." That's not a respectful way to debate, you should be polite enough to allow your opponent to finish speaking before you speak. I thought we all learned this in first grade: don't interrupt others, it's disrespectful and annoying. Kaine came across disrespectful and annoying.
In this election, the Clinton campaign has been attacking Trump's demeanor, but Kaine, during the debate, had a worse demeanor than Trump. It seems contradictory for the Clinton campaign to criticize Trump for his demeanor in light of Kaine's behavior last night.
Pence, on the other hand, mostly let Kaine finish his thought and then capitalized on Kaine's mistakes. I'm actually going to quote a Washington Post article, "Pence was the more comfortable of the two men on the debate stage. Pence repeatedly turned to the camera when he answered questions, making clear he understood that the real audience wasn't in the room but watching on TV. The Indiana governor was calm, cool and collected throughout — a stark contrast to the fast-talking (and seemingly nervous) Kaine." Pence does what Trump doesn't, and that is stay cool and collected. Pence was like a airplane pilot: even though there was turbulence, he wasn't nervous.
I'm not going to get too much more in depth or break down every little exchange in the debate because the media has that covered. (I think the media were sharpening their pitchforks during the debate in preparation for their post-debate criticism mob.) Anyway, I thought Pence did a great job representing the Trump campaign in the debate Tuesday. Trump could learn a thing or two from Pence on debating.
This isn't in Kaine's defense, but he was probably doing exactly what the Clinton campaign wanted him to, which was to sling mud. It didn't matter how much mud ended up on Kaine, the only thing that mattered was that more mud hit Trump through Pence. Kaine, according to some pundits, doesn't usually behave in such a behavior. That was the sacrifice he was willing to make for the campaign.
That probably says something about our political system, that some VPs are just there to be character assassins instead of an actual asset. That's a sad statement to make, one I wish I didn't believe.
In the words of Forrest Gump, "That's all I have to say about that."
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