“At VP debate a star is born and Trump is vindicated,” former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich gushed in a Fox News postmortem. “Vance Delivers a Master Class in How to Deal with Biased Moderators,” The Daily Signal echoed.
I don’t see it that way, at least for when the conversation turned to the Second Amendment. JD Vance’s acceptance of prohibitionist terms, his failure to correct egregious errors and outright lies, and his avoidance of elaborating to voters on why the right to keep and bear arms is the keystone of freedom, show that when it comes to effective advocacy, Republican politicians all too often come up short.
The first blown opportunity arose when the subject of abortion was raised and Tim Walz complained that under a Trump administration, “the states will decide what’s right for Texas might not be right for Washington. That’s not how this works. This is basic human right.”
By David Codrea