Response to How It's Done

(See: Just Above Sunset: How It's Done)

Until I realized that Tim Kaine was just "taking one for the team", as one CNN pundit pointed out in their after-debate show, I thought he was pretty much just making a fool of himself with all those interruptions, and that Mike Pence was "winning” the debate by coming off as the adult.

But because neither campaign is any longer really fighting to change minds — since both sides seem to realize those voters who are still undecided at this point will probably vote for neither, the plan being just to settle for who they already got — then this whole debate was just a playful but meaningless exercise that neither side really won. Kaine, who otherwise seems kind of meek, played the part of the slugger, hoping to throw Pence off balance — and nicely performed, I must say! I couldn’t have done that! — and Pence’s job was to not fall down, which he mostly didn’t.

Did Pence fail to defend Trump from damaging blows? Probably not really, since his base doesn’t care, and neither does the other side. And was Pence really just setting himself up as the nominee for 2020? Maybe, but since he’s such a non-entity today, I really doubt he’ll be a real contender by then either.

I guess both sides did what they came to do, but since what they did actually didn’t need to be done, then I really didn’t need to stay up late to watch them do it.