US vice-presidential candidates set to take centre stage
Donald Trump’s coronavirus infection has intensified the spotlight on Thursday election debate between running-mates Mike Pence and Kamala Harris.
In normal times the debate between US vice-presidential candidates is a footnote in the race for the White House, a moment many people watch but struggle to recall a week later.
Not this year. In the year of the great pandemic, the prospect of a vice-president suddenly finding themselves as the leader of the free world because of the coronavirus is no longer a theoretical concept.
With the 74-year-old President Donald Trump stricken with COVID-19 and his 77-year-old Democrat opponent, Joe Biden, trying desperately to win an election without catching the virus, there is now a fierce spotlight on their back-ups, Mike Pence and Kamala Harris.
These vice-presidential candidates face-off on stage in Salt Lake City on Thursday (AEDT) in a very socially distanced way, with the distance between them increased from seven to 12 feet, along with a plexiglass barrier.
The Harris campaign requested the greater separation after the 61-year-old Pence found himself last week in the midst of the still ongoing White House coronavirus outbreak, even though he has regularly tested negative since.
With a sick President and 210,000 dead Americans, you can expect that the 55-year-old Harris will do all she can to keep the focus on the pandemic, which polls show is a political loser for the White House.
She will have to do this carefully, however, given that both Donald and Melania Trump have the virus. But with Trump now claiming he feels well and after his theatrical discharge from hospital, Harris may feel she can resume the attack on the President’s handling of the pandemic.
By contrast, you can expect Pence, a former Indiana governor who served 12 years in congress, to do all he can to switch the focus on to issues which play well to conservatives, such as law and order, the economy and the Supreme Court.
This one-off debate is likely to be a battle of wildly contrasting styles. Pence is a steady-as-you-go politician, neither exciting and inspiring, nor insipid and ineffective. He has been an unfailingly loyal deputy to the outsized personality of his boss, making sure he never outshines the President or disagrees with him in public.
Yet Pence is also a competent debater, as he showed in his 2016 tussle with Hillary Clinton’s running mate Tim Kaine. Pence also impressed in his recent speech in Baltimore at the Republican National Convention when he gave a strong law-and-order pitch, warning that the safety of Americans and their cities was dependent on the re-election of Trump at a time when riots were breaking out across the country.
This is also Pence’s moment to assume a higher profile in the election campaign given that for at least the next 10 days Trump will be unable to join him on the campaign trail.
Harris, a former Californian prosecutor with only three years’ experience as a senator, has a very different style. She has already gained a reputation on Senate committees as a lively and fierce cross-examiner and she has been the main Democrat attack dog on the President’s mishandling of the pandemic.
Harris can be sharp on the debate stage, as we saw early this year when she almost torpedoed her chances of the running-mate ticket with a cutting attack on Biden over the issue of school bussing of African-Americans. But Harris also has her weaknesses. Her campaign to win the Democratic nomination fell apart early amid mixed messaging on her stance on healthcare and other issues. Pence will seek to portray her as someone who will push Biden far to the left if he becomes president.
Harris is likely to try to hold Pence accountable for his leadership of the White House Coronavirus Task Force given its failure to contain the pandemic in the US. It promises to be a tough contest but without the rancour that marred last week’s Trump-Biden debate.
Pence and Harris are almost certainly going to run for president one day so this debate deserves attention.
Let’s just hope that they don’t get there sooner than they should because of the coronavirus.
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