BU Today: Given the presidential candidates’ ages and Trump’s COVID-19 infection, was there more than the usual scrutiny of the vice presidential candidates during this year’s debate over past ones?

Joyce Hope Scott: Biden did some strong deliberation in choosing Kamala Harris (age, health, etc.). It appears that he intends to add to his legacy by nominating the first African-descendant woman, positioning Harris to become a candidate for president if he only intends to serve one term. Considering Harris’ age and her preparedness, including her energy and health, she would be well-placed to run. Biden seems driven by a desire to leave a unique legacy, in addition to all the other factors that he considered. He had a pool of other very capable women from whom to choose. The African American community enabled him to win the Democratic nomination. Biden felt a necessity to be inclusive and particularly to respond to that African American support.

David Shorten: Early on, the moderator asked both candidates if Biden and Trump had broached this subject with them. Unfortunately, they both dodged the question. Another key moment came when Page asked Pence what his role would be if President Trump refused to concede defeat in the election. Unfortunately, Pence dodged that question as well. Worse, he reiterated President Trump’s determination to undermine mail-in voting, which has had a place in US presidential elections since the Civil War.

Tammy Vigil: This question will be better answered based on the responses to the debates—i.e., what people say they took away from the debate. However, the actual questions about presidential fitness and ability to serve were, at first, ignored by Pence during the debate; he forced an answer on COVID into his initial response. When he did respond, he ignored the issue, as expected. Harris initially addressed the issue directly, but not with any detail, and switched the topic to taxes. Both reframed the questions—a common tactic in presidential and vice presidential debates, historically speaking—but Harris tended to answer more effectively while Pence deflected on almost every question.

BU Today: What was your big takeaway from the debate?

Hope Scott: I was impressed by the range of questions and the tenacity of the moderator in keeping the candidates on target. Otherwise, there were no real surprises from the candidates. Pence stuck with his party line. Harris did much the same.

The poignant question from a Springville, Utah, eighth grader at the end (“If our leaders can’t get along, how are the citizens supposed to get along?”) was a wonderful and unique, refreshing change to the debate, and I actually thought that Pence’s response to the student’s question was surprisingly effective and carefully tailored to a young girl of her age.

Shorten: Although Pence claimed that the Biden campaign had “plagiarized” the Trump administration’s response plan to COVID-19, this debate sharply contrasted with the presidential debate last week. It showcased the clear differences between the candidates on policy (which was not possible to discern in the maelstrom of the presidential debate). Senator Harris’ and Vice President Pence’s responses highlighted key differences between the candidates on the Paris Climate Accord, tax cuts, the “trade war” with China, abortion, the Supreme Court nomination of Amy Coney Barrett, implicit racial bias, and government “mandates” (that old chestnut, used by conservatives to accuse liberals of trampling individual freedoms with overbearing government).

Vigil: The debate itself was about what I expected from a content standpoint. That said, Pence toed the party line by playing fast and loose with the truth while repeatedly accusing Harris of doing so. He repeated the line, “You are entitled to your own opinions but not your own facts,” while presenting clearly and blatantly false information, making the line seem more like another form of deflection. For informed viewers, the hypocrisy was palpable.

The moderator was, once again, almost useless. Page’s meek attempts to keep the candidates, mostly Pence, in line with the rules resulted in Pence taking significantly more time and dominating the debate (which was not necessarily a favor to him, because he looked more disrespectful despite his “soft-spoken” tone). It almost seemed like a moderator bias in favor of the sitting vice president. At one point, Pence actually gave Susan Page permission to move on to a new topic, making her look extremely weak.

It was not at all surprising, but my big takeaway is that Pence is much more disrespectful than he pretends to be. Although his tone is soft and relatively quiet, he showed disregard for the rules, for the moderator, for his opponent, and for the American people. He used classic tactics to seem like he was being reasonable while aggressively running over his allotted time, ignoring the moderator, and avoiding the questions he was asked. His soft-spoken style was a big smoke screen.

BU Today: After the widespread revulsion with the tone of last week’s presidential debate, did either veep candidate redeem their ticket with their debate performance?

Hope Scott: They redeemed the dignity of the race for the presidency by being fairly civil. They brought it back in line with what we expect of a presidential debate.

Shorten: The distance between the candidates on the stage worked! Mike Pence and Kamala Harris made deliberate choices to be civil with one another—for the most part. Pence in particular offered effusive (yet benign) praise of Harris for her public service, as well as her well-wishes for President Trump’s recovery. The cordial tone opened space not only for a more substantive discussion than we saw last week. It also gave both candidates the opportunity to debate and assess “the truth” of one another’s comments, which sparked more than one spirited and revealing back-and-forth. All ye “undecided voters,” rejoice!

Vigil: Not surprisingly, the debate was a lot more tame than the first presidential debate. Pence had a lot more work to do than Harris to make up for the behaviors of their top-of-ticket candidate, but his reserved character meant he was likely to behave just fine. In actuality, Pence was deceptively dominating. His tone of voice was calm and measured, but he overran his time egregiously and often with little regard for the women on the stage. The most overt example was his refusal to move on to the question of age and fitness of the president. He avoided the question by returning to COVID and making claims that were untrue. Harris, respecting the rules, moved on to the topic at hand. Overall, Pence was quieter and more measured than Trump, but actually not any better behaved beyond respecting the two-minute uninterrupted rule. Harris managed her response to Pence more effectively than Biden did with Trump.

BU Today: Was there a highlight or gaffe that one candidate will capitalize on?

Hope Scott: I was struck by Harris’ comment regarding the fact that our allies rated the Chinese president above President Trump in prestige. Also, Harris put Pence on the defensive relative to the coronavirus issue. This seemed to be the biggest handicap for Pence.

He did not adequately rebut the question of why the administration lied to the American people and why the United States has the highest rate of deaths from the virus of all countries.

On the climate change question, Pence’s response was total nonsense when he tried to claim success in this area. Harris pointed out that the Trump administration has one of the worst records, and major environmental protection agencies have rated them that way. She pointed out that the administration had desecrated sacred sites of indigenous people. She underscored their withdrawal from the Paris Climate accords. All of this elicited no real response from Pence. He carried the Trump line—“He is the environmental president.” Harris was cryptic in pointing out that they had removed all mention of climate change from the website of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Oceanographic Institute, and other science-driven agencies. All have been infringed upon by the antienvironmental policies of the Trump administration.

Shorten: Harris’ highlight: “They’re coming for you” on healthcare. The coronavirus pandemic is the issue most likely to decide the outcome of this election. Senator Harris’ passionate defense of the Affordable Care Act and her cutting criticism of the Trump administration’s unthinking revulsion toward it revealed how much the politics of healthcare have changed since 2016.

Biggest gaffe: Not knowing the age of her stepchildren, Cole and Ella? But seriously, she was poised, well-informed, and direct with the American people.

Pence’s highlight: defending Trump’s tough stance on China, Pence argued unequivocally that Trump won the trade war, and that China is to blame for the coronavirus, pointing out that Biden shortsightedly opposed that decision. Also, his response about the possibilities of bipartisan friendship and American unity—using the friendship of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia—managed to pull the heart strings.

Pence’s biggest gaffe: the fly on his head that would not buzz off! But seriously, from the perspective of conservatives, Pence made no gaffes.

Vigil: Gaffes by vice presidential candidates are often interesting and sometimes memorable, but they don’t frequently make a difference in the campaign itself. In this debate, the gaffes were minimal. Harris made a key mistake by only mentioning men who serve in uniform, but that was not a gaffe so much as a missed opportunity to be more inclusive. Pence made a key mistake by repeating the clearly overly practiced line, “You have a right to your own opinions but not your own facts,” drawing attention to his own misinformation.

Harris’ moment on race was powerful. Her line “bad cops are bad for good cops” is memorable but was quickly presented. Her personal connection was mixed with details about ways to move forward. Pence had difficulty showing appropriate emotion for the victims of systemic racism, but mustered sympathy for the owners of small businesses. When Harris said, “I will not sit here and be lectured by the vice president,” followed by her experience, it was a powerful moment within the discussion that was punctuated by Trump’s difficulty denouncing white supremacists.

BU Today: How did the presence of the first woman of color in a vice presidential debate, and Pence’s responses to her, play before a national audience amid the current US conversation about racism?

Hope Scott: It seems that Pence was respectful, perhaps in a way that he might not have been with a male. However, he seemed tempted to lecture her and was prone to condescension; just his general posture raised questions about his response to her being based on her race in addition to her gender.

Shorten: Of course, Pence did not directly make an issue of Harris’ ethnicity. He did not follow President Trump’s lead in questioning her citizenship. Nonetheless, her ethnicity was a subtext in questions about her work as a prosecutor and Joe Biden’s contribution to mass incarceration through his support of the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act. Overall, however, Harris channeled her predecessor, Shirley Chisholm—the first African American woman to run for president—in two ways. Not only did she refuse to make the debate a referendum on her “blackness,” with her effective and repeated retorts to Pence not to interrupt her (“I will not sit here and be lectured by the vice president”), she stood true to Chisholm’s enduring legacy: she was “unbought and unbossed.”

Vigil: Views of Harris’ performance will very likely break along partisan lines and, unfortunately, many viewers will carry both race- and sex-based assumptions into their assessments. During the debate, Harris was measured and more patient than I would have been with the disproportionate allotment of time and the falsehoods being stated by her opponent, yet I am certain that critics will accuse her of being too assertive or seeming impatient. Some people might argue she was too emotional because of her statements of sympathy and empathy for others, but even then she was measured, blending compassion and passion with reason. I worry that the partisan divide, coupled with latent stereotypes, will drive assessments and reinforce customarily restrictive perspectives on women, and particularly women of color. A truly dispassionate assessment would show that Harris had a largely unremarkable debate with a few really good moments, and Pence was overly evasive and deceptively aggressive.