vance was a traditionally good debater in an academic fashion, sure.

But the population doesn’t like people like that. That’s why people like trump and biden get elected over people like vance. Same thing with bush.

He didn’t have good counters to a lot of the shit that Vance was throwing out.

he had good counters to the most important disinformation in that whole debate, including a lot of the more reasonable stuff that vance just parades about, walz actually has something to speak on in those moments. Vance was clearly just focusing on formality rather than actual debate skills. And to be fair, if he countered every factually incorrrect thing vance said, he wouldn’t be able to say anything at all, which is even more of a loss because then you haven’t gotten anywhere, and your opponent has spent the entire time yapping. It’s literally the neo-nazi meme.

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/09/17/americans-view-walz-more-positively-than-vance-but-many-arent-familiar-with-either-vp-nominee/

not done specifically on the debate, but evidently i think it’s fair to claim it’s relevance here.

The broad consensus is that Vance handily won the debate

i disagree, i think you would find most people would argue that vance held a better debate, but walz was generally a better speaker. You can’t look at this strictly through a debate lens, the american public doesn’t care about them.

He is not even close to being a white Obama. Obama is a highly skilled orator, extremely skilled debater, and a scholar. Tim Walz connects well with people–perhaps especially well with midwestern people–but he is not a particularly strong orator,

i would argue that obama is a really strong speaker, like generationally so, anybody can be skilled in a debate, what really matters when it comes to debating is factual accuracy, and being able to quickly make your point. Which is historically something democrats have struggled with.

Walz i would argue is a good public speaker, maybe not in a formal sense, but again we’re talking about politics here, people like when their politicians are relatable and down to earth, and walz does really well at this. He’s not a scholarly type, but you’d be hard pressed finding anybody on either side of the isle that wants an academic in power. Walz also has significant policy experience through minnesota, which obama has through his presidency. Though it is more prestigious.

Walz is definitely more socially progressive than obama is, but obama is a bit of a weird case. He’s very center left.