The Greatly Anticipated Vice Presidential Debate!!

*sounds of loud snoring*

Salem!

mmnnnoofivemoreminutes

Salem, wake up. There's a debate on.

Fine. Let's get this over with. Bland guy versus bland guy, GO!

• Tim Kaine is leaning really heavily on the whole 'proud of running alongside a woman' thing and Trump fear-mongering. 
• Pence is discussing his own experience. Reminds me very much of one of those military officers that has to make a hard decision in a movie seconds before the hero saves the day. Like that guy Glenn Morshower always plays.
• Tim, stop trying to convince me Hillary is passionate. Lizards are cold-blooded. 
• Pence is right, Tim. You and The Hill do spend an awful lot of time talking about Trump and not about yourselves. Stop trying to convince me to vote against somebody and convince me to vote FOR somebody. 
• STOP MANTERRUPTING, TIM
• At this point I can't tell these two apart aside from Pence's luscious silver hair. 
• Wage gap? Really? How many laws have to be on the books before we admit it's not *because* of gender? 
• More tax returns. Yes, Tim. He probably should release them. Yes, Mike, he does pay payroll taxes, or more specifically Trump Enterprises (or whatever it's called) does. What's *he* paying on *his* income? 
• Oh god race relations. Generally my opinion of someone drops drastically when they use the words "dumpster fire" but this one qualifies. 
• "I'm a gun owner and I support the 2nd Amendment" - Tim Kaine, 2016. Tim, are you running on the right party, bruh? 
• Pence, to Kaine: "I agree with you on community policing." Wow... uh.. Can we ditch Trump and The Hill and just have these two run on a ticket together? 
• I take it back. TIM, SERIOUSLY, STOP MANTERRUPTING
• Tim Kaine hates context. I bet he'd be a good writer for Salon. 
• "Criminal Aliens." I'm not sure if that'd be more or less offensive to a progressive than "illegal immigrant." Or Gary Johnson. Chill, Gary. 
• Uh, oh. Tim brought up the Irish. Don't bring up the Irish, Tim. The identity politics people will eat you alive if you remind them the Irish had problems. 
• "What's so enjoyable about nuclear war?" says old man who has clearly never played a Fallout game.
• These two have about as much concept of the passage of time as their running mates.
• TIM YOU JUST MANTERRUPTED THE FEMALE PERSON OF COLOUR MODERATOR WHAT ARE YOU DOING
• What's an Aleppo? 
• Damn, Tim. Bringing up Trump's tax returns in that 15 year period in relation to 9/11. Ok. That was a good blow. Low, but good. Not sure what it has to do with whatever an Aleppo is, though. 
• Tim's answer to everything is tax returns. Russia? Tax returns. The Clinton Foundation? Tax returns. Nuclear proliferation? Tax returns. Zombie outbreak? Tax returns. Killer clowns? Shotgun. (I mean, come on, he *did* say he was a gun owner)
• Wait, how do you know Trump owes so much money to Chinese banks without his (everybody, now!) TAX RETURNS?
• Fuck me, the Democratic VP candidate is a bible-quoting Catholic. Somebody get me a source on Pence's denomination. 
• Why is the Republican wearing a blue tie and the Democrat wearing a red tie? I mean they're mic'd right. Tim's mic is on the left, Pence's on the right, but the ties are the wrong colour. I can't be the only one that noticed this. 

I came away from this with the impression of Tim Kaine as a spastic, unprofessional, and over-eager child, and Pence as a leader, if not an overly charismatic one. I can't take Tim seriously. At all. Pence, on the other hand, seems a more solid candidate than any of the ones that were in the GOP primary. I honestly don't think Trump deserves him, and I think this might be a long-game in which if Trump wins, Pence is going to be doing most of the work with Trump as a figurehead. If Trump loses, we'll see Pence running against The Hill in 4 years (assuming she makes it that far). 

[author's note: The show must go on. Erin is, as we're all aware, currently in rapid transit away from a monster storm and will probably be unavailable tomorrow. I'll fill you all in on an anecdote or two regarding my own experiences of evacuation instead.]