Daily Herald opinion: The race and the debate: Thankfully, it was civil, but it didn’t clear up a lot for undecideds

It an interesting fact of politics that over the years, we have come to think of a political campaign in terms of a race.

To be sure, there must be in every political contest, as in every race, a winner. But in the matter of politics, expectations about the outcome have become so absorbing that less telling factors are often racked up as “wins” and “losses” along the way to the point that they become more memorable, and sometimes more decisive, than the policy issues that define the candidates. With political debates, in particular, it is hard to escape the tendency to declare one party or the other the “winner,” when in fact the ultimate party that wins or loses as the result of a debate is the audience.

If we do not learn something important about the qualities of the opposing candidates and their policies, a debate becomes a kind of game show tilted by Richard Nixon’s five o’clock shadow, or Ronald Reagan’s “There you go again,” or Lloyd Bentsen’s “You are no Jack Kennedy.” Candidates get a momentary, superficial setback or boost, but voters get little of value to help them make an independent, informed selection.

With such thoughts for a backdrop, it was rather refreshing to find that the aftermath of Tuesday’s vice presidential candidates’ debate found pundits less consumed with declaring a “winner” between Republican JD Vance and Democrat Tim Walz than with describing the reserved, respectful tone that characterized the affair. If nothing else, it was reassuring that such a tone could be produced — most of the time, at least — in the divisive animus of today’s political climate.

But the success of this debate from a voter’s perspective did not extend far beyond that point.

Once featuring two aging candidates with tentative mental and physical health issues, the 2024 presidential campaign has elevated the importance of considering vice presidential candidates’ qualifications even more than many past contests. The departure of Joe Biden in favor of Kamala Harris may seem to modify that concern on the Democrats’ side, but if so, it is only slightly. Cliché though it may be, the vice president is just one breath away from the top job, so it is critical for voters to wonder, “Can this person handle the big job if circumstances demand?”

They got little help in that regard from this debate. Interestingly, at various times in the evening, both Vance and Walz suggested that the other was more interested in solving certain problems, most notably immigration, than their presidential running mates. But interest does not necessarily equate to capability, and on that score, the thrust of the candidates’ arguments was focused more on the qualities of their bosses than on their own.

Thus, ultimately, the vice presidential debate, however well-mannered, offered little of substance to help undecided voters. Vance’s inability to support the security of our election system must surely give pause. Walz’s compassionate but unspecific rambling on immigration policy just as certainly provided little to inspire confidence.

In other words, while pundits and partisans were left arbitrarily to identify a “winner,” independent voters could only sigh that it was not them. But at least they weren’t subjected to the embarrassing personal sniping that has become all too common at the top of the ticket.