Summary: Eric Bradner’s, a news reporter for CNN, article, “5 takeaways from the vice presidential debate,” summarizes the vice presidential debate and discusses the most important aspects of the debate, the winner and what this debate could means for the future. Bradner argues that the five most important takeaways from the debate were: Pence's temperament, Kaine’s hits against Trump, Pence vs. Trump on their foreign policy agenda, Pence’s ability to ignore attacks on Trump, and the fact that America learned nothing about the VP candidates. Bradner argued that Pence’s ability to keep calm while Kaine continuously questioned many of Trump’s arguments helped Pence win the debate, which is crucial due to Trump’s loss in the Presidential debate. However, even with this win, there is still a question whether or not Trump will directly benefit and gain more voters. In addition, a new problem arises between Trump and Pence on their foreign policy. Viewer’s learn that Pence and Trump have different views on foreign policy and specifically the Syrian refugee crisis, which could potentially add tension to their campaign and could result in fewer votes. Another important aspect of the date was Pence’s ability to refrain from taking any of Kaine’s lure’s that attacked Trump. Whenever Kaine would pose a question that painted Trump in a bad light, Pence never addressed them directly, and would instead turn the conversation back to Clinton. However, because Pence avoided the attacks on Trump, he did not help ease the criticism many people have against Trump. Overall, Bradner argues that we didn’t learn much about either VP, we just once again saw how the VP date is a proxy affair where each VP defends their presidential candidate.
Connection: The VP that wins this election will have a large role in our government in the next four years. This VP will have an immense amount of power in the senate, and can be influential in the decision making process. The way the VP’s handle themselves in this debate shows the audience a great deal on how well they will be able to run our country.
Questions:
Do you believe Pence’s win will help Trump win more votes in the election why/why not?
What do you believe is the most significant part of the debate? Why?
Do you believe that there will be a significant problem between Pence and Trump in the future over foreign policy? Do you believe this could affect the voting turn out for these candidates?
I do not believe Pence's win will help Trump win a significant amount more votes due to a multitude of reasons. Primarily, because according to USAtoday a mere 37 million viewed the debate, less than half of the presidential debate turnout. With such a small viewer turnout the vice president candidates comments will not be heard by enough people to make a substantial difference. Additionally, as Brander's article stated, the candidates do not discuss their own stances, they mostly focused on Trump's or Clinton's. Therefore, they are only restating what the Presidential candidates have already publicized, most likely not swaying anyones already formed opinions. Overall I do not believe Pence's win will be enough to sway voters, as the vice presidential debates do not hold enough power to be effective.
ReplyDeleteGood topic. I think Pence reflects the difficult choice for the Republican National Committee and the establishment wing of the party. Will they stay with Trump? So far, Pence is supporting Trump:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/post-tribune/opinion/ct-ptb-davich-pence-tightrope-dilemma-st-1012-20161011-story.html
Good topic. I think Pence reflects the difficult choice for the Republican National Committee and the establishment wing of the party. Will they stay with Trump? So far, Pence is supporting Trump:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/post-tribune/opinion/ct-ptb-davich-pence-tightrope-dilemma-st-1012-20161011-story.html
The differing stances on foreign policy held by Pence and Trump could prove problematic in the future. If elected, it is essential that Trump be willing to work with his VP to agree on matters and present one opinion that the public can get behind.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I do not think that this divide in the part will have any affect on voters because most of the public is already set in their ways. For the few swing voters, this may have an impact on which way they decide to vote, but it shouldn't hold that heavy of an impact because there are many more important issues to consider in this presidential election.
Pence may have done well for himself in this debate, but he did nothing to defend Trump. He behaved much more calmly than his running mate usually does, but he also deflected most of Kaine's attacks, which will probably not help Trump gain votes. At the same time, far more people watch the presidential debates than the vice presidential ones, so any defense Pence might have provided would not gain much attention anyway.
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ReplyDeletePence's reaction to the attacks made on Trump were both impressive and reassuring, however, I believe that this ultimately won't help Trump win over any more voters than he already has. Most voters, at this point in the election process, know and stand strongly behind the candidate that they are voting for. So, even if a candidate does do an impressive job in the vice presidential debate, it, in the end, won't have a significant effect on the outcome of the election.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Kyra in that the vice presidential debate will do little to sway voters into voting for their corresponding running mate. Although Pence demonstrated a respectful stance during the debate, this does not make up for the countless times Trump has said controversy things. Not only that, but the fact that their views differ, is both confusing and a turn off for voters.
DeleteI don't believe that Pence's success in the debate will be very helpful to the campaign or Pence individually. In terms of the campaign, I don't think enough people pay that much attention to the vice presidential candidates. While some traditional Republicans may be reassured to see a "real" Republican on the ticket, the people who will really decide the election are the independents who aren't necessarily going to be that drawn to Pence since he is still pretty far right. I also don't think Pence's successful debate will be very helpful for his career in the long term because, as most polls suggest, Trump is most likely going to lose this election. Therefore, when Pence tries to move forward with his political career, people are always going to remember that he stood next to a man that the country soundly rejected as commander in chief, which is not going to look very good on his record or make him appeal to large numbers of voters in the future.
ReplyDeleteI think that at this point, it's nearly impossible for Pence to do anything to help the Trump campaign. While Pence was successful in the debate, the obvious differences in Pence and Trump's ideologies on foreign policy turns off a lot of potential voters who may want to support Trump, as a President and VP with different views on the same topic presents a problem in the White House. Trump is also such a bold, media-covered figure, that Pence has little ability to in any way affect his image positively other than attempt to justify his actions. I think the whole debate was significant, because people really looked to these two candidates to see something different and to see real politics being debated rather than the immaturity of the recent presidential debates.
ReplyDeleteLooking back on this debate, I think that Pence's performance may have helped reassure a couple people that there is a experienced political figure behind Trump, but considering what happened between this debate and election night, I don't think that this debate made as much of an impact as it was hyped up to have before the debate. In the end, it felt like this debate fell by the wayside to all the emails and things that Donald Trump said on a bus.
ReplyDeleteI do not think that Pence helped Trump gained a significant amount of votes. While it is true that Pence had a good temperament during the debate, he was not able to actually defend the attacks on Trump. Additionally, the VP debates do not have nearly as much attention as the presidential debates. At this point, I also do not believe that the debates will have much of an influence as many already know who they will vote for. For the voters who are still not quite sure, they will most likely be swayed by the arguments made in the presidential debate rather than the VP debate.
ReplyDeleteI think that pence's temperament helped him in winning the debate. However I do not think that it will have an impact on how voters will view Trump because the VP debates are usually given less attention by the media and thus have a lesser impact on how voters view each candidate. I do not necessarily think that Trump and Pence's different views on foreign policy will a big effect on Trump's campaign because it is not unusual for a candidate and their running mate to have slightly different views on several issues.
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