The pleasant tone of the debate between the vice presidential candidates was surprising, writes ‘s U.S. correspondent Iida Tikka.
Iida TikkaYhdysvaltain correspondent
WASHINGTON. When the Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz and the Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance met on the debate stage, the Americans expected furious attacks and mutual barbs.
But that didn’t happen. To the great surprise of the audience, two men were seen on stage, who spoke matter-of-factly and stayed up to date.
A particular surprise was JD Vance, who has been unpopular even among Republicans because of his embarrassing comments. On the debate stage, he appeared calmly and matter-of-factly.
The candidates even superficially agreed on some issues, although nothing unites them other than their gender and their home region in the Midwest.
JD Vance is a 40-year-old first-term senator who studied law at a top university. Walz, 60, is a former teacher who has represented Minnesota for more than a decade in the House of Representatives and led the state for two terms as governor.
The rhetorical style of the candidates is also very different, and it highlighted the weakness of televised debates.
It was best shown in the debate, where Finland suddenly became the center of the debate.
JD Vance used the argument during a technique that is effective in debates: he spoke quickly and a lot. Then you get so many things involved that the opponent can’t even react to everything, especially if he wants to make his own comments.
It was best revealed when the conversation turned to gun violence.
Answering a question about gun violence, Vance began by describing how wonderful the children are on their way to school, then said something had to be done. He then claimed that illegal guns are coming to the United States with Mexican drug cartels, that schools need to be more secure, and that gun violence is worst in cities.
A long answer drowns out many themes, whose fact-checking is impossible for the opponent, especially when the journalists who led the debate didn’t even try.
For example: It is true that there is a huge flow of weapons at the US-Mexico border. The Mexican drug cartels get a large part of their weapons from the United States – according to the authorities almost 70 percent of the guns seized in Mexico has entered the country from the United States. Without this context, it’s easy to shift the blame for US gun violence across the southern border.
Tim Walz, on the other hand, spoke much more slowlyand using simple examples – such as Finland.
Walz replied in the same gun discussion that he had been to Finland, there are no school shootings, even though there are a lot of guns.
Walz also reminded that a large part of US gun deaths are suicides in rural areas. This is true, more than half of US gun deaths are suicides.
– I appreciate what Tim said about Finland, because it shows the strange differences between our countries. We have more mental health and drug problems, unfortunately, Vance said.
The whole discussion therefore remained civilized, even though the style of the debaters was very different.
Not traditionally with a vice presidential debate have no influence on the outcome of the election, even though the importance of the vice president has been emphasized enormously since the last election.
First, both the assassination attempts on Trump and his age are reminders of how easily a vice president can suddenly become the leader of a superpower.
Second, after the last election, many Americans realized for the first time the role of the vice president in the transition of power. Specifically, the vice president confirms the election result.
Towards the end of the debate, Tim Walz brought the issue to the table. Vance has said in his previous statements that he would not have confirmed the result of the election.
When Walz asked his opponent whether he would lose Donald Trump 2020 election, Vance sidestepped the question and didn’t answer.
– Where is the firewall with Trump? Where’s the firewall if he knows he can do anything, even throw an election, and his vice president won’t stop it, Walz asked.