The Great Debate...

The veeps pull it off without a single sneer!

No one wins debates!

What is most likely to determine how you react to the CBS vice presidential debate between Republican J.D. Vance and Democrat Tim Walz is what you felt about them quite some time before the first questions were asked.

Republicans will find a hundred reasons why Vance was the big winner, and Democrats will deliver chapter and verse on why Walz won, despite his unfortunate slip of tongue on the school shooting thing.

Oh, and it wasn’t prudent for Vance to defend the ridiculous thought that Trump won the 2020 election, or that the Jan. 6 debacle was anything less than a Trump-inspired insurrection.

I have a different perspective.

I would open the door of my house to Gov. Walz any day of the week and walk away knowing it will be respected and all the valuables will be just where I left them. He would also be a great guy to just sit and talk with, an important characteristic for a politician.

I could see him burping after a hot dog with chopped raw onions.

I understand how he might have gotten carried away when he was talking about China so many years back. I have the same problem. It is why I generally travel with an editor, my wife, who is not shy about saying, “That’s not what happened!” when I get a little hyperbolic.

Still, I would have been delighted to have any of my sons in any of his classes.

J.D. Vance is something else.

I kept thinking, “Dang, the Republicans have put the wrong guy on the top of the ticket.” Vance is so much more eloquent than Trump, so much faster on his feet, and so much more intelligent that Trump should make certain he and Vance are never in the same room with other people.

And while I don’t like to make these kinds of assessments, he is a lot better looking than Donald Trump. His hair is normal and when he looks down, I suspect he can see his feet!

He also made it seem as though he and Walz could sit down at a table for a while and stand up with a good solution to a problem. They are both that smart, although Walz is clearly more experienced at that.

So, after the first and only vice presidential debate, a reminder: Beyond their spouses and children, no one votes for vice presidents. The action is still at the top of the ticket.

Charlie Madigan was a reporter and editor for United Press International and The Chicago Tribune. He was Presidential Writer in Residence at Roosevelt University for a decade. He lives and writes in Evanston, Ill.