Rarely does something happen, like a fly on a head, that makes a vice presidential debate matter. Sure, Lloyd Bentsen took Dan Quayle to the woodshed with his “I knew Jack Kennedy” retort, but did it change the outcome of the election? Dukakis got crushed in his own right, and Bentsen’s memorable line may have been perfect, but it couldn’t un-Willie Horton the vote.
Tonight, J.D. Vance will debate Tim Walz. Vance, a Yale-trained lawyer who has more than a few debates under his belt, will debate Coach Walz, whose “aw shucks” dad vibe has pretty much encapsulated the start and finish of his campaign contribution as second to Kamala Harris. Of course, with Harris at a spry 59 years of age, it’s unlikely that she’ll be unable to complete her term such that Walz will end up as president in her stead. Thus, who really cares one way or the other? Vice president is, for the most part, a non-job, a spare, a warm body just in case.
But then, Vance has managed to do the impossible, make statements that make Trump look even worse than he does on his own. On the one hand, he seems to adore the spotlight all too much, giving interviews to anyone who asks and saying things, like how the solution to the Ukraine war is to surrender and capitulate to Putin by rewarding his invasion by ceding him the land he’s stolen.
Trump has tried desperately to skirt the issue, with such inane vagaries as claiming he’ll stop the war in a day because Putin loves him so much, without offering any explanation of how he will do this voodoo. Then Vance goes and gives the ugly fix away, causing Trump to claim he doesn’t know Vance and never met him. Okay, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but not much.
Of course, the one thing a vice president, in his constitutional role as president of the Senate, must do is set forth in the Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution,
President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted.
Vance has had something to say about this as well.
Before and after his selection as Donald Trump’s running mate, Mr. Vance said repeatedly that if he had been vice president on Jan. 6, 2021, he would have intervened in the electoral count in favor of President Trump.
Remember that Vance went to Yale, so he can’t quite shrug off the Constitution with a blithe “what do I know?”
By saying he would have prevented Congress from counting the electoral votes that confirmed President Biden’s victory, Mr. Vance has admitted that he would have asserted an extra-constitutional power to abet Mr. Trump’s plot to remain in power.
Regardless of whether you believe in the wacky Big Steal nonsense or not, there is no question but that the role of the vice president is to open the certificates sent to the Senate by the states so the electors may be counted. It is a purely ministerial task, and the veep has no authority to reject, or even question, whatever the states sent to the Senate. But what if they did steal the election? That’s up to the states, the courts and, ultimately, the Congress. The only person in the room who has no say is the vice president.
By announcing, in advance, that he will fail his one constitutional duty, does Vance disqualify himself from being vice president as he cannot take the oath of office to defend a Constitution that he’s vowed to violate?
But even so, does this matter to anyone? There is a strong argument to be made that Harris brings little of substance to the table, having yet provided little clue what she will do to accomplish any of the platitudinous claims that a woman who grew up in a middleclass family made. And yet, she’s not Trump, which may be enough to win the day.
Will Tim Walz change anyone’s mind about Harris? Will Walz fill in the gaps that Harris has so studiously refused to fill? But Trump, at age 78 and in potential cognitive decline, although it’s hard to tell given his cognitive abilities at his peak, is far more likely to fail to make it through a term of office, meaning Vance is much more likely to end up president before the term is over. Does that change the calculus?
*Tuesday Talk rules apply, within reason.