Who Won the Vice-Presidential Debate?

             The vice-presidential debate between Vice President Mike Pence and Senator Kamala Harris (D-California) was held tonight at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, Utah. The most probable reason why Salt Lake City was selected for the debate is that both campaigns are courting members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

            Again, I did not watch the debate because I had tasks that I considered to be more important. Besides, there is absolutely nothing that Harris can say or do that would convince me that voting for the Biden/Harris ticket would be an intelligent thing to do. Because I did not watch, I must rely on the opinions of other people.

            An opinion piece in the Deseret News stated that “Kamala Harris and Mike Pence each looked presidential.” However, there was a caveat: “Both clearly had plans to ram home certain points regardless of the question asked.” 

            According to this article, the debate tonight “made debates watchable again.” However, it admits that “the bar for a good debate was low in the wake of the first presidential encounter between President Donald Trump and Vice President Joe Biden.” The presidential debate was “marred by constant interruptions, insults and no coherent explanation of policy positions.” The vice-presidential debate “was civil, but sadly lacked direct responses from the candidates to specific questions.” The last question about “how to end all the anger and violence in politics” “almost seemed a week too late.”

            A second article declared that the debate included “occasionally interrupting each other and ignoring the moderator’s repeated pleas to stop talking.” However, there were also “hundreds of protesters verbally jousted on the streets off campus.” 

            There were more Trump supporters “wearing Make America Great Again hats and carrying large Trump flags” than there were people “rallying for Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.” The two groups were separated by police in riot gear as they shouted Black lives matter” and “All lives matter” back and forth to each other.

            There was a third group of demonstrators that came to make their complaints known. They were Armenians and waved flags of red, blue, and orange. Some of them were from outside Utah and had traveled to the debate to “protest Turkish atrocities against their country.” They apparently took their position front and center.

            “The crowd seemed oblivious that a debate was going on.” While the protesters were making their causes known and jostling with others, there was a man who sought to bring peace and calm to the situation. He “played a saxophone, including several hymns and the national anthem, as loud as possible.”

            The United States is known as a melding pot with many nationalities and ethnicities. In addition, Americans of all backgrounds know that they have the right to make their voices heard. It appears that the protests were “mostly peaceful” with only one person being arrested for disorderly conduct.