Kamala Harris forgot who she was debating

Perhaps Senator Kamala Harris would have performed better last night if she had remembered who she was debating. It was not — as she hoped it would be when she was a candidate in the Democratic primaries — President Donald Trump. Instead, it was a candidate with a radically different demeanour.

Vice President Mike Pence has his fair share of political enemies, as well as staunchly conservative viewpoints that put him at odds with plenty in Congress — and the country. But, privately, people like him. He’s thought to be pleasant, respectful and decent — even his Democrat counterparts say so. In this sense, Pence and Joe Biden are cut from the same cloth: not politically, not philosophically, but simply liked by colleagues on the left and the right. When former President Obama struggled, multiple times, to negotiate debt ceiling deals during his tenure, he’d send in Biden to negotiate — a rare Republican whisperer during increasingly tense times.