A professional persuader/hypnotist analyzes Tuesday’s VP debate

ByMike Huckabee

October3, 2024

Adams starts off by saying that details of the policies discussed might not have much influence at this point, that this was more of a "vibe situation." (We might add that this is especially true because the two moderators ignored a number of important issues.) "You're definitely gonna remember how it made you feel," Scott says. But based on either "policy" or "vibes," Vance clearly won the debate. Even THE NEW YORK TIMES referred to this as Vance's "dominant debate performance."

"...Vance is young and handsome and way smarter than Walz," Adams notes, and appeared "confident" without a trace of nervousness. In contrast, he thought Walz was doing quite an extraordinary impression of Chris Farley, specifically a character Farley used to do on SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE. Remember Matt Foley, the twitchy, nervous motivational speaker who lived in "a van down by the river"? That was Walz.

https://snl.fandom.com/wiki/Matt_Foley

"The only person in the world who looked like Chris Farley was Chris Farley," he says, "until now."

Adams observes that even most of the Democrats who have been commenting since Tuesday night "seem to have seen the same debate I did."

In fact, the event went so badly for Walz that Democrats are now saying VP debates don't matter. David Axelrod dismissed it with this post: "Here's the thing. VPs don't make policies; Presidents do. Who talks about 'the Pence years'?" Well, nobody. But that's not the point.

Axelrod was, in effect, admitting that Walz lost the debate. That's because when you win, it's the most important thing ever! Only when you lose does it become not important in the slightest.

But guess who treated it like a tie? MSNBC, of course. Joe Scarborough said, "If the goal is to make Tim Walz our Midwest neighbor, a nice guy, it's 'mission accomplished.' Tim Walz got exactly what he needed out of this, and so did Kamala Harris."

Adams says he only watches MSNBC for such examples of unintentional humor, but at this point we find it too scary to be funny. Still, it's kind of fascinating to watch them try that hard spin on something so unspinnable. Adams suggests that about half of the people on MSNBC are certifiably mentally ill. "If they're willing to put those people on the air, I'm willing to laugh at them," Adams says.

MSNBC's Nicole Wallace, "went crazy," he said, about Vance "man-splaining" to the female moderators. All he did was respond to them for violating their own rule not to "fact"-check the debaters. He rightly called them out on that.

One can't help but wonder what the viewers' response would've been if two male moderators had started "fact"-checking a female debater in defiance of the rules and then, when she corrected them, cut her mic. Talk about accusations of man-splaining.

Anyway, Adams says the moderators had one thing they had to accomplish, and that was get through the night without "fact"-checking one debater and not the other. But they just couldn't do it. This was such an epic fail that Republicans are now talking about ending the televised debates entirely. And Scott agrees: "It's not clear to me that Republicans should ever again, for any office, have a televised debate, because it's just a trap..."

If they never set it up with a balanced team of moderators, "why would you keep agreeing to it?"

(I have long argued that if there are to be debates at all, they should be real debates with no moderators. If it was good enough for Lincoln and Douglas…)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln%E2%80%93Douglas_debates

Scott then compares the relative persuasiveness of the two candidates, and Walz does not come off well. Vance has the "command voice" (direct, declarative) while Walz has the "pleading voice."

"If the only thing you did was listen to the two of them, one of them looked like a leader --- like a born leader, really --- and Walz looked like...Chris Farley, trying to do an impression of somebody doing a presidential debate but not having any tools to do it."

Scott also said to watch Walz's face, because when he goes "wide-eyed," that's when he's lying. (He told a bunch Tuesday night; we recounted these yesterday. Vance did not lie even once as far as we can tell.)

On the other hand, Vance came off as "brilliant" in the way he answered questions, "serious, but not too serious," and generally focused on the future rather than the past. He did "a reasonably good job" at avoiding the booby traps, the really divisive questions. Scott "didn't love" Vance's answer to the January 6 question --- and he's right in saying J. D. could have dealt with it more directly instead of deflecting --- but Scott doesn't think it hurt him. In fact, it might have been good strategy, since just about anything he said on that topic might have been taken out of context and twisted by the left in commercials between now and election day.

According to Adams, Vance "solved Trump's biggest problem," which was that Vance had been perceived as "scary." Vance countered that perception by just "seeming like a good person." One good example of this would be his handling of the question on deportation, with just a very reasonable answer. Vance might be seen as the person who would be "the first and best check on a President who was going to be excessive." (That's not to say Trump would be, but he's perceived that way.) Vance comes across as the "reasonable and smart voice in any room." And Vice Presidents do have a kind of power that they can exercise by publicly resisting, to the point of even threatening to resign for the good of the country. Vance appears to possess the strength and moral authority to do that if necessary.

That might make it easier for some of those undecideds --- unbelievably, there still are some --- to vote for Trump.

One of Vance's best moments didn't involve words at all but said a great deal: his knowing "side-eye" expression that's all over the internet now because it was JUST PERFECT. Also, Vance wisely did not turn profile to look at his adversary, as Walz did, but kept the viewers as his reference point.

Obviously, Vance was prepared, but he didn't appear "coached" at all. He seems naturally capable of getting up and debating anywhere, anytime, with perfect readiness. This is just what anyone would want in their President or VP.

Finally, Scott's "hypnotist's take": since subconsciously we're all driven by the attractiveness of others --- this is, biologically speaking, "our basic operating system" --- women in particular will be influenced by this in assessing these two males. Even Vance's reference to "having three children" is something that boosts him in that regard. In plain language, he just seems more virile.

If some complain that this is a shallow reason, well, it is. But we'd ask you to consider how well the young, handsome, energetic John F. Kennedy fared against the less physically appealing Richard Nixon. (As the story goes, Kennedy "won" on TV, while radio listeners thought Nixon was better.)

Scott goes on to talk about some of the answers to particular policy questions if you haven't heard enough discussion of those. But at this point, we can say we're mercifully done with debates in this election cycle and so should focus on getting out the vote and keeping the process as honest as we can possibly make it. With one month to go, Trump is really in excellent shape right now, and so is his running mate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5r2u-RRZKk

RELATED: Two VP debate write-ups we've all been waiting for, from Kurt Schlichter and Derek Hunter of Townhall.com…

https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2024/10/03/jd-vances-debate-performance-shows-this-guy-is-a-conservative-superstar-n2645628

https://townhall.com/columnists/derekhunter/2024/10/03/walzs-answer-on-basic-question-demonstrates-why-he-and-harris-shouldnt-be-allowed-anywhere-near-power-n2645667

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