Trump and Biden Head for a Return Bout

After the Pence vs. Harris Undercard

The vice presidency "is not worth a bucket of warm piss," announced John Nance Garner, the 32nd vice president of the United States from 1933 to 1941, when Franklin D. Roosevelt occupied the White House. Cactus Jack, as Garner was known to his Texas friends, was commenting on the fact that the vice president's Constitutional duties are limited to presiding over the senate, voting to break a rare tie, and succeeding to the presidency should death stalk the Oval Office. That, of course, was before Dick Cheney demonstrated how the office can be made relevant in the service of a President who has not died, but that is a story for another day.

Eight of America's 44 presidents have left this earth while in office, headed in one direction or the other, four as a result of an assassin's bullet, making it seem perverse that any vice president would aspire to a promotion. But the risk is tolerable because the job comes with substantial perks: a decent salary, a lovely house, a private plane, international travel, excellent health care and lots of fawning by people who newly discover your virtues.

Both vice president Mike Pence and senator Kamala Harris know that Trump was the oldest man ever to take office as President for the first time - a title he will cede to Biden if the polls are anywhere near correct. The President is clinically obese, the most recent update of his notably unreliable public health record comes from military doctors who report to him as their commander-in-chief, and little is known about the long-term effects of his bout with Covid-19. He does claim to be recovered, setting a pace that would be considered more than acceptable by visitors to Lourdes, and must be reassuring to anyone stricken with the virus who has access to a paid-for six-room suite at Walter Reed hospital, dozens of its finest doctors, and permission to use experimental therapies.

Joe Biden also does not come with an entirely reassuring health profile: observers cite recent hints of reduced mental acuity. His reluctance to engage the press lest a reporter inadvertently trip him up is not reassuring, and some find it troubling that he cannot move coherently from subject to verb and on to the end of a sentence. That might be due to a considered refusal to be bound by the rules of English syntax he learned in school. More likely, he has, not unusually, reached an age in which charming gaffes have morphed into some degree of reduced cognitive efficiency, which is one reason there was pressure on Harris to demonstrate an ability to move seamlessly into the Oval Office. Worriers point to Biden's inability to remember that it was the Declaration of Independence that held it to be a self-evident truth that all men are created equal. His version, in a speech in Texas, "All men and women are created, by, the, you know, you know the thing." If Biden wins, he will be older when sworn in than Ronald Reagan was when he completed his second term.

Both combatants entered the lists weighted down with some heavy baggage. In the case of Pence it was Trump. The vice president was forced to defend the administration's far from flawless response to the pandemic, with the unhelpful background noise of the President's often bizarre suggestions for coping with the disease. For Harris it was her now-abandoned support for Bernie Sanders' Medicare for All, and the Democratic left's Green New Deal, both of which Biden seems to and might actually have abandoned, and her echoing of Biden's refusal to reveal his plans concerning packing the Supreme Court until after he is elected. Both candidates shared an advantage: it would not take an inordinate amount of self-control to produce a show more elevating than the Biden-Trump exercise in incivility. They cleared that low bar.

Pence, backed by the facts that the Trump years saw unemployment plunge and the economy surge, that America is experiencing a surprisingly rapid recovery from the mandated shutdowns, had the better of the arguments about the economy and trade, and about foreign policy, the Middle East and China in particular. Harris was effective in reminding voters of Trump's empathy shortage, his reckless disregard for the health of others and his obsessive attention to his personal as opposed to the nation's interests. Neither candidate exhibited embarrassment when dodging questions.

Pence Fails To Win USA Today Poll

So who won? That depends on the eye of the beholder and on the definition of "won". If winning means topping Pence in early, post-debate polls, Harris won. Indeed, the poll taken by USA Today, the newspaper that employs the supposedly impartial moderator of the vp debate, initially invited its readers to answer a "who won" question by filling in a form (later amended) that, er, erroneously neglected to include Pence among the possible winners.

If it means demonstrating that there is no need to worry about Biden's health because she can slip seamlessly into the Oval Office should fate so decree, this beholder believes she lost. Pence's calm demeanor contrasted with and high-lighted Harris' grimaces, eye-rolling, and smirks. And his courteous congratulations to Senator Harris on her successful and historic career went unrequited. If fate decrees that they meet again in the 2024 presidential debates, it might well be a battle between a calm, Biden-like Pence and a combative, Trump-like Harris.

Any favorable comment that might have come Pence's way was lost in the furor over Trump's announcement that he will not participate in the next debate with Biden because the debate commission has decided his illness requires a virtual format. Trump says gaffe-prone Biden, who has more than once confused Iran with Iraq, might benefit from covert electronic coaching by his handlers. The President also worries that a virtual format would give the moderator the tools to cut off a candidate who oversteps his allotted time. His plan to do just that - Chris Wallace, the moderator of the first debate, regrets that it took him too long to recognize that over-runs and interruptions are part of Trump's basic strategy - makes a shut-up a good idea, one this writer has recommended to the commission. It is almost unheard of for a candidate as far behind in the polls as the President to turn down an opportunity to take on the front-runner. But Trump is not one to be bound by conventional, historic standards of presidential behavior.

The jaw-to-jaw debate, scheduled for October 22, will go forward as planned if Trump's doctors certify their patient can participate without endangering the health of the former vice president, the moderator, and supporting staff. Given the quality of the previous shout-down, it is unlikely that we will see a reasoned discussion of the very different economic policies the candidates are promising to implement.

Trump says Biden and his Left will wreck the economy he, Trump, has built and is rebuilding. If Biden were competent to hold some data in mind, he might point to a study by McLean investment advisors of 23 presidential elections held between 1926 and 2019. The average annual return to shareholders, measured by the S&P 500 index, was 9.12% when we had Republican presidents and 14.94% when Democrats controlled the White House. To which an always fact-buttressed Trump might reply that the same study shows that in years in which a sitting president or a member of his party prevails, investors raked in an average return of 16%, whereas when voters switched parties, returns averaged only a bit above 5%. To which Biden might respond ... never mind, reasoned debate has not prevailed thus far, and will not suddenly emerge as the weapon of choice by either candidate on October 22.

We will have to see whether the Democratic candidate, if elected on a tax the rich-and-spend-on-climate-change platform can deliver the growing green economy he is promising, and if Trump prevails whether the re-openings of the economies of states willing to relax restrictions can fuel a continued recovery, and his policies can take the economy to new heights.

It is fashionable for the bulk of the media to contend that Trump's defeat would end a national nightmare which they attribute to his behavior, and he to the refusal of his stunned opponents to accept the legitimacy of his 2016 victory.

As his opponents prepare for an awakening from their nightmare, they might consider this. If Trump loses, he will not be much older in the next round, 2024, than Biden is now. Grover Cleveland served two non-consecutive terms as the 22nd and 24th President.

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Irwin Stelzer is a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute