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George W Bush’s former speechwriter has revealed how JD Vance might be able to best his Democratic rival on the debate stage: by exposing his “goofs.”
William McGurn, who worked as former president Bush’s chief speechwriter between June 2006 and February 2008, penned his prognosis in a The Washington Post op-ed on Monday – one day before the vice presidential candidates were set to take to the debate stage in New York on Tuesday evening.
In the article titled “How JD Vance Wins the Vice-Presidential Debate With Tim Walz,” the former White House staffer said that Vance could win the debate by using Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and President Joe Biden’s “goofs” to pick apart Kamala Harris’s campaign.
In particular, he picked out some recent remarks which he believes undermines the Harris campaign’s efforts to put distance between her and the Biden administration – instead more firmly tying her to some of the “deeply unpopular” policy decisions from the last four years.
Two weeks ago, Walz told Pennsylvania rallygoers that “we can’t afford four more years of this.”
Meanwhile, Biden said in an interview with MSNBC’s The View last week that he’d delegate Harris “responsibility for everything from foreign policy to domestic policy.”
In the op-ed, McGurn writes: “What makes the Walz and Biden goofs so damning is that they puncture the pretense on which the Harris campaign is built.”
Walz’s comments were about gun violence, not about the state of the US under Biden and Harris. Republicans have, however, taken the phrase out of context and used it as an attack line against the governor.
McGurn believes Vance may capitalize on the remark too on Tuesday night.
“That’s important because, for all the criticism of Ms Harris as an empty pantsuit, she is savvy enough to appreciate that the Biden-Harris record is deeply unpopular – and it is most unpopular on the issues voters care about,” he writes.
Vance himself isn’t infallible, McGurn admitted, noting the Ohio senator’s past comments may come back to haunt him.
“Biden and Walz have made gaffes, but Mr Vance has his own to answer for: his ‘childless cat ladies’ cracks, his once speculating that his now running mate could be ‘America’s Hitler,’ and his 2020 assessment that Mr. Trump ‘thoroughly failed to deliver on his economic populism,’” McGurn writes.
Polling from Prolific for The Independent has shone a light on the importance of the debate, with two-thirds of Democrats believing the vice presidential candidate has a significant impact on the success of the overall presidential ticket.
Vance and Walz are set to go head-to-head at 9pm ET on Tuesday for their first – and likely only – vice presidential debate.
The debate, held at the CBS Broadcast Center in Manhattan, will be broadcast live across the television network.
CBS Evening News anchor Norah O’Donnell and Face the Nation host Margaret Brennan will moderate the debate, which will maintain the same rules as Harris and Trump’s debate last month with one exception: microphones will be left on.
