A montage with photographs of Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate for the US vice presidency, and Mike Pence, his Republican rival.MORRY GASH ERIC BARADAT / AFP
Kamala Harris has started strong: "The American people have witnessed the greatest failure of any presidential administration in our history," she said in her first speech, asked by the moderator about the administration's management of the coronavirus pandemic Trump.
From there, however, the Democratic senator has not been able to prevent the veteran vice president from taking to his land, topic after topic, with hardly any exceptions, the debate of the candidates for the vice presidency of the United States.
In the two months since Biden chose her as a running mate
,
the Democratic senator has kept a low profile on the campaign.
Tonight it was Kamala Harris time.
Last week, in the presidential debate, expectations were so bad for Joe Biden that, despite the grim spectacle they both put on, he was able to come out displaying a victory.
Tonight, expectations were very high for the Democratic candidate.
And it can hardly be argued that he has complied with them.
It has been a very different debate than the one between Trump and Biden.
Much richer in political substance and, partly because of the prohibition (not always respected) to interrupt the opponent, much more respectful.
There have been moments of tension, as befits a debate between political rivals, but they have never descended into personal disqualification.
And that's the first area where Pence seems to have thrown Harris off the hook.
Far from the aggressive ways of his boss, the vice president has exhibited an exquisite education from the first intervention, and that has allowed him to deftly dodge the questions he did not want and bring the debate to his ground.
Since that first Harris speech, the headlines have been made by Pence.
"Senator, stop doing politics with people's lives."
"Biden and Harris support publicly funded abortion right up to the moment of birth."
"Joe Biden wants to return to economic surrender with China."
But the main success of Pence, with 210,000 deaths from the coronavirus, with a covid outbreak in the White House, with an infected president who had just released a video in which he speaks of the disease as “a blessing from God”, is that has managed to emerge unscathed from the debate block dedicated to the pandemic.
Pence, who Trump entrusted with managing the health crisis, has managed to sound compassionate, to present himself as someone who understands the severity of the pandemic, and, at the same time, defend that the Administration's response has been great.
"Not a day goes by without me thinking about all the Americans who have lost someone," said the vice president, giving the candidate the opportunity to bring out the president's recent comments that "we should not be afraid of covid "Which is" much less lethal "than the common flu.
Harris hasn't picked up the glove.
A crafty Pence's techniques for stepping into the debate have been varied, but two stand out: one, politely ignoring the moderator's questions and continuing to answer a previous question on the next, thereby depriving Harris of the possibility of respond and allowed him to say the last word in matters from which, on paper, it was convenient for him to flee;
and two, forcefully force his rival to answer his questions with a yes or no.
This last technique has allowed him to get out of the controversial issue in the Supreme Court.
"Are you going to expand the number of judges in the court?" He asked Harris.
Pence was referring to the possibility that, if the Republicans succeed in consummating the relief in court before the elections, the Democrats will increase the number of magistrates, if they win the majority in the Senate, to neutralize the conservative bias that would have been left as a legacy the Trump Administration.
Harris couldn't answer yes or no, basically because he wouldn't be depending on her, and not even strictly on the president.
But by insisting on the question, Pence has managed to convey the idea that it is the Democrats who are trying to make an unorthodox maneuver, and not the Republicans, who are actually preparing to fill a vacancy in the Supreme Court to less than one month before the elections, contrary to the criteria they used to prevent Obama from appointing a judge ten months before the 2016 elections.
The vice president has managed to put Harris on the defensive even in a field where, a priori, Democrats should feel as comfortable as is the fight against the climate crisis.
It is true that he has resorted to falsehoods, and has released phrases such as that Trump "has made it clear that we are going to continue listening to science" on environmental issues.
But by insisting that Biden promises to "abolish fossil fuels" and "end
fracking
", measures that are not really part of his program, and by sticking his finger in the sore of the contradictions of Biden's candidacy with the Green New Deal, Pence has managed to maintain the initiative also in this bloc where the Trump Administration has so little to boast.
For various reasons, tonight's debate of the vice presidential candidates was more presidential than ever.
Trump's contagion of covid has brought the importance of the vice presidency to the table.
The president is 74 years old and Biden, 77. The former, even if he wins, will not be able to run again;
the second has suggested that his presidency would be one of transition to a new generation of leaders.
In those terms, it can be said that Mike Pence began his presidential race today for 2024. And he has claimed himself as an asset of the Republicans to appeal to the moderate voters who escape Trump.
Harris, for his part, has wasted his time.
Subscribe here to the
newsletter
about the elections in the United States