(CNN) CNN commentators and guest analysts offer their take on Tuesday night's vice presidential candidate debate. The opinions expressed in these commentaries are solely those of the authors. 
 
 David Gergen: Pence Lifts GOP Spirits 
 
 Governor Mike Pence did not change the underlying dynamics of the campaign Tuesday night, but he did provide a significant service to Donald Trump: he gave fresh heart to Trump supporters and may have stopped the downward spiral of their campaign. 
 
 Democrats and many journalists argue that Pence succeeded only by throwing Trump under the bus, refusing to defend his boss from repeated attacks. But they miss the point: voters rarely scrutinize debates line-by-line, instead making their judgments on the overall tone and performance of a candidate. Pence will not fare well with fact checkers, but his poise and polish played well with voters. For better or worse, style counts a lot in these debates. 
 
 Tim Kaine had a much sharper mastery of policy but was forced to play attack dog, a role that doesn't fit his personality. His frequent interruptions didn't help, either -- he seemed less Rottweiler than fox terrier. And by the way, who screwed up his camera angle, so that he was often looking off into space instead of talking directly to viewers? That wasn't fair to him or the audience. 
 
 With a CNN poll showing a Pence victory, Republicans finally have reason to cheer again. Trump himself should see how much preparation paid off for his running mate. But now it is up to the candidate to show he can win at this game, too: the upcoming debate this Sunday in St. Louis is make or break for Trump. 
 
 David Gergen is a senior political analyst for CNN and has been a White House adviser to four presidents. A graduate of Harvard Law School, he is a professor of public service and co-director of the Center for Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School. Follow him @david_gergen . The opinions expressed in this commentary are his. 
 
 Sally Kohn: Mike Pence is living on an alternate planet 
 
 Sally Kohn 
 
 Well it turns out, if you refuse to acknowledge any of the horrible things that Donald Trump has actually said, then it's pretty easy to defend him. 
 
 This was the main takeaway from the vice presidential debate. Over and over again, Democratic VP nominee Tim Kaine tried valiantly to hold Republican Mike Pence accountable for the misogynistic, xenophobic, anti-Muslim, pro-Putin things that his running mate Donald Trump has said. And over and over again, Pence acted like Kaine was not only making these things up but, in so doing, actually perpetrating a campaign of insults simply by repeating the things that Donald Trump had said yet Mike Pence refused to acknowledge. I'm pretty impressed that Kaine's head didn't explode. Mine certainly came close. 
 
 I don't know how you debate someone who seems to have encamped himself on a different planet. Yet to his credit, Mike Pence dished out his flurry of lies with calm confidence -- while Tim Kaine, the truth-teller, came off as ruffled. 
 
 In a moment in American media and political history where the very existence let alone definition of "facts" seems worryingly debatable, I pray that the American people can still tell the difference. Or else I pray that not that many people were watching — and that the morning-after media will do its job of fact checking Pence for his downright lies and thus the impression most voters will walk away will be one closer to -- well, fact. 
 
 Facts are facts. We have literal recordings and transcripts. 
 
 But if anything, the VP debate tests the relevance of facts in this election. Donald Trump and Mike Pence's strategy seems to be to repeat lies often enough to convince 51% of voters that they're the truth. And unfortunately, what actually is true doesn't matter as much as what voters believe to be true. Donald Trump has already bent the electoral process, the media and the boundaries of basic civility to his whims. He may now bend the concept of fact as well. Certainly, his loyal running mate is trying. 
 
 Sally Kohn is an activist, columnist and television commentator. Follow her on Twitter: @sallykohn . She supports Hillary Clinton for the presidency. 
 
 Errol Louis: Pence gives lesson on how to defend Trump 
 
 Errol Louis 
 
 Indiana Gov. Mike Pence went into Tuesday's vice presidential debate burdened with saving the Trump campaign after one of its worst weeks. He emerged as the calmer, smoother counterpart to the erratic performance by Donald Trump during last week's debate. 
 
 Pence's skillful performance was, in part, a product of the five years he spent as a radio talk show host, a job that put a premium on maintaining a clear and conversational tone and timing. 
 
 To make his burden easier, Pence made as few references as possible to Trump, dancing around criticisms about his running mate's tax returns, insults to a former Miss Universe and the constitutionality of his "extreme vetting" plans. Instead, he spent the bulk of the night smoothing out what he dismissed as misinterpretations of Trump's proposals. 
 
 Even if he didn't fully answer questions on race relations and questions on Trump's business acumen, Pence was the cooler alternative to Sen. Tim Kaine, who came off as canned, too-clever and nervous, interrupting Pence throughout the debate. 
 
 Pence calmly dismissed assertions from Kaine with a chuckle, calling his points nonsense. That won't eliminate all the political damage Trump has done with his nonstop insults and mockery, but it demonstrated to other Trump supporters how to defend their candidate without doubling down on his abrasive style. 
 
 S.E. Cupp: Kaine gave tone deaf, unhinged performance 
 
 S.E. Cupp 
 
 Just wow. Tim Kaine had one (fairly simple) job tonight: make the Donald Trump ticket look like the unstable one. Instead, for reasons only the late Miss Cleo might know, he was the one who was totally out of control. 
 
 Sure, he laid out the differences between Trump and Hillary Clinton, hammered away at Trump's rhetoric and asked numerous times how Mike Pence could defend some of Trump's words and proposals. But who could hear any of that through the cacophony of hyperactive, ballistic outbursts and interruptions that marked most of the conversation? 
 
 At one point, Pence mentioned 9/11 and Kaine interrupted to excitedly announce, "I was there, too, by the Pentagon!" When he wasn't interrupting, he was steamrolling through prepared paragraphs of alliterative dad jokes and scripted zingers that might have been effective -- if they weren't delivered at warp speed. And he was so wedded to his anti-Trump mandate, he often seemed oblivious. In an answer to a question about the children of Syria -- let me repeat, the CHILDREN OF SYRIA -- his response was to point out that Trump didn't pay his taxes. 
 
 Whatever substantive points Kaine made about Trump's unpreparedness -- and there were many, and they were important -- were totally overshadowed by Kaine's tone deaf, overly caffeinated, unhinged performance, especially when contrasted with Pence's calm and composed one. If undecided voters were watching, Pence by far seemed the saner choice, maybe even in spite of his running mate. 
 
 S.E. Cupp is the author of " Losing Our Religion: The Liberal Media's Attack on Christianity," co-author of " Why You're Wrong About the Right " and a columnist at the New York Daily News. 
 
 Tara Setmayer: Debate won't move needle 
 
 Tara Setmayer 
 
 Despite finishing a bit weaker than he started, Mike Pence was able to successfully execute his strategy better than Tim Kaine. Pence was unflappable throughout, while deliberately choosing to avoid answering any direct questions about his running mate's litany of controversial remarks and positions. 
 
 By design, Pence took every opportunity to make the question a referendum on Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama's failed policies regardless of the question asked. This tactic forced Tim Kaine to play defense most of the evening. 
 
 Kaine was at his best when he listed many of Trump's controversial statements and then challenged Pence multiple times to defend them, which he didn't for the most part. However, Kaine's incessant interruptions were off putting and undermined his own message. 
 
 Although Pence emerged the victor overall, it won't move the needle at all for voters. Vice presidential debates rarely do. In this case, it simply reminded many Republicans how much different this race would be if a knowledgeable Republican who could effectively articulate the issues were at the top of the ticket instead of a self-aggrandizing demagogue like Trump. 
 
 Tara Setmayer is former communications director for Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-California, and a CNN political commentator. Follow her on Twitter @tarasetmayer. 
 
 Tim Stanley: Pence delivers pleasingly banal performance 
 
 Timothy Stanley 
 
 Now, that was the kind of polite and intelligent debate we used not to watch. Yes, the VP encounter was feisty, but never personally offensive -- and its substance also felt incredibly old fashioned. The separation of church and state, a subject never mentioned in Trump v Clinton, was tactfully addressed; memories of 9/11 were invoked; both candidates agreed that Russia is a strategic threat. In fact, Mike Pence's performance was so old school Republican that he seemed unaware of the reality of Trump's iconoclastic campaign. "Yes, I am happy to defend Mr. Trump," he insisted, adding that Hillary Clinton was the lady with all the insults and Trump was a great and honest businessman. He was defending the Trump of his imagination. 
 
 Kaine gave a spirited performance that was, to his detriment, wholly negative. If he couldn't say "But your candidate said XYZ!" then he wouldn't have had much to say at all. Pence defused the antagonism with the wry smile of a genial old man humoring a simpleton -- and won most rounds. He scored highly on law and order, insisting that there's no contradiction between acknowledging that police racism exists and refusing to exploit tragedy for votes. 
 
 So effective was his performance, so pleasingly banal, that many Republicans will be calling for the ticket to be switched. They do so forgetting that Trump's radicalism deflects but does not diminish Pence's: He was once considered a politically incorrect conservative himself, and any other year would have been regarded as a risky choice for VP. 
 
 So this debate reinforced the impression that while the Democrat ticket is weak and unlikeable, the Republican one is eccentric. Pence, undeniably effective, won in large part by not being as bizarre as his running mate. Any momentum gained will doubtless be squandered by Trump himself. 
 
 Timothy Stanley is a historian and columnist for Britain's Daily Telegraph. He is the author of "Citizen Hollywood: How the Collaboration Between L.A. and D.C. Revolutionized American Politics." 
 
 Jeff Yang: Pence edges non-event 
 
 Jeff Yang 
 
 The overwhelming feeling one was left with after the first and only televised "Second Chair Debate" was pointlessness verging on nihilism. Yes, each debater "landed hits" and "scored points." But the debate will almost certainly have no meaningful or lasting effect on this particular election. 
 
 What we saw in Tim Kaine was a friendly, loyal, bland but upstanding (upblanding?) politician who ably filled his role as Hillary Clinton's staunch defender, but who fell a bit short in executing the other half of his job, as the ticket's designated attack dog. A bit too eager out of the gate, and nearly edgeless in his delivery, Kaine appeared to be more of a frantic puppy than a partisan pit bull. Still, he managed to come off as both human and humane, and certainly did no harm to the Democrats' prospects. 
 
 Mike Pence, as others have remarked, was another story. Though he came off as articulate and informed, and far more measured and thoughtful-seeming than his shoot-from-the-lip running mate, he did Donald Trump no favors as wingman. When pressed to respond to questions about Trump's extensive lies, utter lack of transparency and fractal conflicts of interest, Pence simply evaded and dodged until moderator Elaine Quijano was forced to move on, causing the Republican to visibly exhale in relief. What we were left with was the sense that Pence sees Trump as a stepping stone to his own ambitions; that he's playing for 2020, not 2016. 
 
 In the end, Pence may have eked out a "victory" in this sideshow, but hardly the overwhelming one the GOP accidentally predicted when it uploaded a prewritten Pence wins debate post on its website -- before the debate actually began. Yet another sign of the lack of significance assigned to this non-event, and one we perhaps should have heeded. 
 
 Jeff Yang is a columnist for The Wall Street Journal and a frequent contributor to radio shows including Public Radio International's "The Takeaway" and WNYC's "The Brian Lehrer Show." He is the co-author of "I Am Jackie Chan: My Life in Action" and editor of the graphic novel anthologies "Secret Identities" and "Shattered." 
 
 Nayyera Haq: Kaine, Pence and the battle for white voters 
 
 Nayyera Haq 
 
 It was supposed to be a boring match-up between two men viewed as milquetoast leaders playing second fiddle to the more media-friendly politicians at the top of the ticket. 
 
 Most of us have known Hillary Clinton's running mate as Uncle Tim with the jokes, and Mike Pence as the tortured soul trying to add respectability to Trump's maverick campaign. Tim Kaine broke expectations, showing us the sharp leader who helped heal his state after the Virginia Tech massacre. Poor Mike Pence was stuck toggling between playing cleanup for Trump's missteps and staking out substantive policy positions his boss still hasn't clearly defined. 
 
 But the biggest surprise was how this debate exposed the looming cultural choice facing white men in this election. Trump lost women and minority voters ages ago -- Latinos, and African-Americans -- not just with his flippant misogynistic and racist comments, but his doubling down in defense of policies that reflect those deplorable values. 
 
 Yet, Tuesday's debate drew a sharp contrast between the two tickets, laying bare the choice facing white, middle class voters using two people who look just like them. 
 
 Kaine made the case for how white men can back a woman for President, support local police while believing racial bias exists, and hold personal religious values dear while not pushing them on the broader public. Kaine used Trump's tax record to hammer home that Trump cannot relate to middle class economic struggles. 
 
 Pence helped Republicans feel their conservative values were still present in this election, shoring up evangelical support for Trump, but doing nothing to appeal to a broader undecided audience. In a year that has often pitted white families against minorities in politics and in social justice movements, Tim Kaine made the stronger case for a broader coalition of American values. 
 
 Nayyera Haq is a former White House Senior Director and State Department spokesperson under the Obama administration, Nayyera is a regular commentator on politics and current affairs. She supports Hillary Clinton. 
 
 Buck Sexton: Tuesday night a sign of what's to come Sunday? 
 
 Buck Sexton 
 
 The veep debate felt much like an extension of the presidential debate before it, as the two contenders on stage focused more on top-of-ticket targets than each other. Both Mike Pence and Tim Kaine hammered at the opposing side's would-be president. Overall, substantive policy discussions took a rear seat to the back and forth of political attacks -- and personal insults -- directed at Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. This was a proxy battle, with each surrogate taking the biggest swings at the other team's presidential nominee. 
 
 As for the head-to-head aspect of it, Pence won the debate against Kaine. In tone and style, he came across as more measured, poised and statesmanlike. Pence also made a much more coherent case against Hillary Clinton -- both on her record and her judgment -- than anything Trump pulled together in the first debate. Pence had much more difficulty defending Trump's record, however, as he often was left shaking his head without a response when asked about a specific Trump quote. 
 
 Kaine was in full assault mode the whole time. His supporters probably enjoyed this, but stylistically he came across as rude, snippy and snide. He constantly interrupted Pence, engaged in so much crosstalk that it was difficult to know what anyone was saying, and repeated an endless string of talking points meant to undermine the Republican nominee while skipping over the moderator's questions whenever Clinton's weaknesses were at issue. 
 
 It's unlikely the debate will sway many voters in any direction, but perhaps Kaine and Pence's feisty exchange is a prelude to a much more fiery event coming up between Trump and Clinton this Sunday. 
 
 Buck Sexton is a political commentator for CNN and host of "The Buck Sexton Show" on TheBlaze . He was previously a CIA counterterrorism analyst. He has endorsed Donald Trump for the presidency. 
 
 Frida Ghitis: Pence smooth, but can't defend Trump 
 
 Frida Ghitis 
 
 After Tuesday's vice presidential clash, I have a suggestion for the Commission on Presidential Debates: Donald Trump should debate Mike Pence. 
 
 Governor Pence, Trump's choice for running mate, presented some interesting policy proposals to the public. They just didn't sound very much like those of his current boss, Donald Trump. 
 
 The most startling of all was Pence's talk about Vladimir Putin, "the small, bullying leader of Russia," as Pence called him. 
 
 Trump has praised Putin's leadership qualities and warmly embraced the Russian autocrat throughout the campaign. A few weeks ago, during the Commander-in-Chief forum, Trump told Matt Lauer that Putin, "says great things about me, I'm going to say great things about him." Then he went on to rave about Putin's high approval ratings. That's the same Putin that Pence claims his team wants to forcefully take on. 
 
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 On Syria, Pence outlined a policy that does not resemble any of what Trump has said. Trump has spoken of attacking ISIS and leaving in place the dictator Bashar al-Assad, responsible for far more deaths than ISIS. By contrast, Pence declared that American leadership requires it protect vulnerable citizens, including the children of Aleppo. Compare that to Trump's tone on Muslims in general. 
 
 Pence did make an effort to defend his running mate, but it was a bizarre tactic. When his challenger, Governor Tim Kaine, quoted Trump's own highly offensive words, Pence repeatedly shook his head as if saying no, and laughed, appearing to deny the quotes that were almost all quite accurate. Then, when his turn came to speak, he did not refute Kaine's statements citing Trump's own words. 
 
 But then, at one point, he did refute them. Kaine listed a series of Trump insults that all Americans have heard; attacks against a Mexican judge, disdain for John McCain being captured in Vietnam, and others. Incredibly, Pence seemed to deny the words everyone has heard. "If Donald Trump had said all the things you said he said in the way he's said them," he said, it would still not compare to Hillary Clinton's "basket of deplorables." 
 
 Pence tried to paint Clinton as the one responsible for running an "insult-driven campaign." But Americans have heard Trump. Pence's smooth debate skills cannot erase that. 
 
 Another Pence excuse, this one on abortion, won't cut it. Trump told Chris Mathews that "there has to be some form of punishment" for women who have abortions." Pence excused it saying Trump is "not a polished politician." 
 
 Pence is a polished politician. It showed in the debate. But he failed to defend Trump's policies. 
 
 Frida Ghitis is a world affairs columnist for The Miami Herald and World Politics Review, and a former CNN producer and correspondent. Follow her @FridaGhitis 
 
 Haroon Moghul: Pence's dishonesty is spiritually toxic, socially radioactive 
 
 Haroon Moghul 
 
 When the five wizards arrived in Middle Earth many years ago, the shipwright Cirdan gave his Ring of Power to Gandalf, not the leading wizard, Saruman. Cirdan chose wisely: While Gandalf would rally men and elves against Sauron's evil, Saruman not only conceded to tyranny, but embraced it. 
 
 If there's a reason Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" endures, it's because it isn't really fantasy. It is a kind of scripture. I'm not claiming Donald Trump is Sauron. I am, however, arguing that we can get an insight into what happened to Mike Pence by seeing how great writers explore the effect of power on the human soul. 
 
 Sen. Tim Kaine repeatedly cited Trump's most egregious comments, but all Pence did was deny Trump ever said any such thing. We have a non-focus grouped term for that. Lying. Pence may have lied more than Trump did, and that's a historic achievement. 
 
 So whether Pence loses the debate in the court of public opinion is secondary. Whether he becomes vice president almost does not matter. Pence's dishonesty is not just spiritually toxic, but socially radioactive. If the top of your ticket indulges anti-Semitism, moots war crimes, mocks veterans, shames women, and mines Breitbart for campaign direction, then you're no different. 
 
 What difference does it make if you're not a racist, but you want a racist to become president? Donald Trump was the test God placed before Mike Pence, and he failed. That's so much worse than losing. 
 
 Haroon Moghul is a senior fellow at the Center for Global Policy. His next book, "How to be a Muslim," will be out in 2017. 
 
 Lanhee J. Chen: If Pence had been at the top of the ticket... 
 
 Lanhee J. Chen 
 
 Mike Pence delivered a performance Tuesday night that left conservatives swooning and may have fueled the consolidation of Republican support for Trump. 
 
 He successfully prosecuted the case against Hillary Clinton, remained cool even under constant interruptions from Tim Kaine, and articulated a conservative vision of governance in the post-Obama era. 
 
 Some conservatives (including me) are left wondering how different this electoral cycle might be if Pence was at the top of the ticket instead. But while Pence's performance Tuesday evening will be a bright spot in what has otherwise been an abysmal stretch for the Trump campaign, it's not immediately clear whether a vice presidential debate will impact the race more broadly. And over the next week, the Trump campaign will surely be asked to reconcile the differences in policy positions articulated by Pence and Trump on areas such as U.S. policy toward Russia and Syria. 
 
 It's ultimately up to Trump to turn in a better performance on Sunday in St. Louis and again when he and Hillary Clinton debate in Las Vegas on October 19, if he wants to alter the trajectory of his own campaign. And, at the end of the day, while Pence presented very well, he's not the one running for president. 
 
 Lanhee J. Chen is a CNN Political Commentator and the David and Diane Steffy Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He was the policy director on the Romney-Ryan 2012 campaign and participated extensively in preparing Romney for his debate performances. 
 
 Ruth Ben-Ghiat: Pence won, but Americans could lose 
 
 Ruth Ben-Ghiat 
 
 For much of the campaign, Governor Mike Pence has been treated by his authoritarian running mate, Donald Trump, as a kind of afterthought. Tuesday night, though, Pence demonstrated that he can best even Trump in the fine art of denial. Pence smoothly denied documented statements and actions by Trump, or else refuted the existence of the issue altogether. "Ours is an insult-driven campaign?" Pence asked, as though he'd never heard anything so ludicrous. 
 
 Most notably, Pence refused to talk about Trump's racism. Pence sidestepped a question from moderator Elaine Quijano about the black Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina being stopped multiple times by police, and dismissed notions of implicit bias as "badmouthing" law enforcement. He chided Kaine for "whipping out that Mexican thing again," as though calling Mexicans rapists should be no big deal. 
 
 Pence's astonishing ability to deny everything perfectly expresses the GOP leadership's refusal to acknowledge what they have unleashed in America by nominating Trump. It helps to soothe the consciences of Speaker Paul Ryan, Senator John McCain, and all others who refuse to retract their endorsement of this rogue individual, no matter what he says or does. 
 
 Next to Pence, Kaine came off as irascible and unable to stop his interrupting and over talk. Pence won this debate, but Americans will be the losers if he and Trump prevail on November 8. 
 
 Ruth Ben-Ghiat is a professor of history and Italian studies at New York University, a specialist in 20th-century European history and a frequent contributor to CNN Opinion. Her latest book is "Italian Fascism's Empire Cinema." She supports Hillary Clinton for the presidency. 
 
 Angela Rye: What was that? 
 
 My review of the VP debate in two words: wack sauce...like what WAS that?! Two career public servants met on the debate stage to argue about who was more "establishment." Yet the challenge? Nobody knows their names. 
 
 Tuesday night, the two VP candidates had an opportunity to be the chief spokespersons for their leaders while simultaneously assisting the American public in getting to know them better. Early on, I got the sense that Mike Pence laughed to keep from crying the entire night. I also thought his smug appearance, constant head shaking, and outcry that Tim Kaine's mere repetition of Trump's words were "nonsense," was condescension and arrogance. 
 
 Pence is probably wondering how he got here (until he realizes he was not likely to win a gubernatorial re-election anyway). He kept saying Kaine's statements were nonsense. His strategy was simple: say everything Kaine says about Trump is ridiculous -- pray you don't get fact checked. 
 
 Kaine would have one upped if he had said: "you're absolutely right. Your candidate's disregard for humanity and dangerous rhetoric is nonsense -- that nonsense has an audience and it has become poisonous and violent." 
 
 There were so many missed moments starting with the moderator: if she was fact checking, Kaine wouldn't be the only one cutting Pence off. 
 
 Angela Rye is a CNN political commentator, NPR political analyst and CEO of IMPACT Strategies, a political advocacy firm in Washington. She is also a former Congressional Black Caucus executive director and general counsel. She supports Hillary Clinton. You can follow her on Twitter @angela_rye and on Instagram @angelarye 
 
 Raul Reyes: Governor... please 
 
 Raul Reyes 
 
 "Governor, please." Those were the words of moderator Elaine Quijano, midway through the debate, as she tried to keep Mike Pence from interrupting his rival Tim Kaine. She could well have been articulating the thoughts of millions of American viewers, who might be excused for thinking that Pence did not know his running mate was actually Donald Trump. Time and again, Pence seemed most annoyed when Kaine recited Trump's own words back to him. 
 
 In the "Battle of the Dads" Tuesday night, Tim Kaine came prepared to fight -- and he clearly won the evening's face-off. The sparkle in his eye as he landed his jabs contrasted nicely with Pence's monotone delivery and occasional flashes of annoyance. Kaine pounded Pence with Trump's refusal to release his tax returns, his murky ties to Russia, and his misogynistic and anti-Latino comments. Kaine drove these points so repeatedly and strongly that at one point Pence sighed with irritation and said, "You've whipped out that Mexican thing again." Does he not realize that "that Mexican thing" is one reason Trump is hitting historic lows with Latino voters? 
 
 Kaine was fiercely on-message tonight. He did a good job in laying out the stark differences between Clinton and Trump on immigration, calling Trump's plan "Deportation Nation." He crystallized the complicated abortion issue into one simple question, asking Pence why he didn't trust women to make their reproductive choices themselves. 
 
 Still, Kaine failed to bring up one of Pence's vulnerabilities -- his history of anti-LGBT legislation cloaked as religious freedom. At a time when marriage equality is the law of the land and most Americans -- especially young people -- support LGBT rights, this was money left on the table. Kaine also missed the opportunity to mention the fact that Pence has accepted the Medicaid expansion in his state under the the Affordable Care Act -- something at odds with Trump's opposition to "Obamacare." 
 
 For his part, Pence struggled to explain how the Trump tax plans would benefit all Americans. He completely avoided Quijano's question about dealing with homegrown terrorism, and when asked about North Korea nuclear policy, pivoted to discussing the Clinton Foundation. Tellingly, one moment when Pence did not have anything to say was when Kaine brought up Trump's attacks on Judge Gonzalo Curiel because of his Mexican-American heritage. Here, Pence's silence spoke volumes. 
 
 To be fair, Pence had the unenviable job of attempting to do damage control after Trump's disastrous debate performance last month. But he really didn't do himself any favors in the credibility department when he accused the Clinton/Kaine ticket of running an "insult-driven campaign." The facts say otherwise -- "Crooked Hillary" comes to mind -- as even causal observers of the presidential race know. As moderator Quijano might say, "Governor... please." 
 
 Raul A. Reyes is an attorney and member of the USA Today board of contributors. Follow him @RaulAReyes 
 
 Julian Zelizer: The start of Pence 2020? 
 
 Julian Zelizer 
 
 Both campaigns will find something to be pleased about with the debate. If Clinton wanted an in-your-face attack dog, Tim Kaine answered the call. He took some tough shots at Donald Trump and everything that the Republican campaign has supported. He reiterated most of the key talking points from the campaign, right from the start of the night. 
 
 When Mike Pence brought up the Clinton Foundation, Kaine turned the conversation to what he sees as the much more egregious and less altruistic nature of the Trump Foundation. 
 
 Most importantly, Kaine forced Pence into the uncomfortable position of being challenged to defend Trump's most outrageous, polemical and insulting comments about women, Mexicans and Muslims. Mostly Pence side-stepped the points Kaine made. 
 
 "I'm just saying facts about your candidate, and you can't defend him," Kaine said when Pence complained about their "insult-driven" campaign. 
 
 But Pence achieved his goal in this debate, which was simply to provide some positive coverage for the Republican ticket and offer an image of the ticket that differs from everything Trump has conveyed. Of course, the bar was low after Trump's performance in the first debate. Throughout most of the back-and-forth, Pence appeared calmer and more deliberative than his opponent. If Kaine wanted to provoke him in the same way that Clinton did with Trump, he was not able to do so. 
 
 This time, it was the Democrat who kept interrupting and throwing out attack lines. Pence was able to express some of the major lines of Republican criticism against Clinton's policy record, something that Trump has mostly failed to do. He brought in the attacks on whether voters can trust Clinton without letting the issue overwhelm his argument. 
 
 Pence scored some points by responding to the claims about Trump's insults by pointing to Clinton's line about half of Trump's supporters being in the basket of "deplorables". 
 
 Kaine's aggressive demeanor, filled with endless interruptions and jabs, will not play well with some voters. Pence's statements about religion and abortion are sure to comfort some Republicans who are uneasy with their nominee. 
 
 Republicans were absolutely desperate to halt the stream of negative news stories coming out about the Trump campaign that has dominated the past week and, in this respect, Pence achieved his goal. 
 
 The challenge for the Republicans though is that Trump is still at the top of the ticket, with all the negatives he has brought to the party. With Trump live tweeting insulting comments throughout the debate, the real question is whether this has any impact at all on the polls. 
 
 There is little evidence that Trump will show any signs of remorse about his style or about his policies. Trump is also in the middle of preparing for a town hall debate on Sunday that will give Clinton a huge opportunity to use her seasoned campaign skills a second time around. 
 
 In the end, it might be that Pence's biggest accomplishment Tuesday night was to help him launch a possible presidential ticket of his own for 2020. 
 
 Roxanne Jones: Pence is polished, but Is that enough? 
 
 When you know it's wrong, just be quiet and move on. That was the strategy adopted by Governor Mike Pence at Tuesday night's vice presidential debate when it came to defending his Presidential running mate Donald Trump. 
 
 Repeatedly, Pence declined to defend some of the more flammable issues surrounding Trump. On Trump's not paying taxes, insulting immigrants, Muslims, women, business deals with Vladimir Putin's Russia -- Pence was mostly silent. Clearly, Pence does not believe in everything Trump is selling. No matter how many times Senator Tim Kaine tried to bait Pence, he stood firm, opting to defend his own conservative legacy and reputation instead of getting mired in Trump's drama. Smart move. 
 
 Kaine, who it turns out, isn't just a mild-mannered nice guy, was a breath of fresh air. He came into the debate armed with information and talking points on Hillary, ready to pounce. And he seemed just the right amount of fed up. Maybe it's the fighter in me, but I liked his fire. 
 
 True, Kaine acted at times like an over-eager kid trying to hard to impress us, but at least he wholeheartedly believes in what he and Hillary Clinton are trying to sell to the American public. He believes in her. 
 
 Unlike Pence, Kaine doesn't not give the impression that the main reason he's on the ticket is to enhance his own political stature, or even worse, be a babysitter for a wayward president. Integrity matters. The win goes to Tim Kaine, by an edge. 
 
 Roxanne Jones, a founding editor of ESPN Magazine and former vice president at ESPN, has worked as a producer and as a reporter at the New York Daily News and The Philadelphia Inquirer. She was named a 2010 Woman of the Year by Women in Sports and Events, is a co-author of "Say It Loud: An Illustrated History of the Black Athlete," and CEO of the Push Marketing Group. ||||| Monday brought the first debate of the presidential season, but it often felt like two separate debates. One, from Hillary Clinton, was wonky, crisp, and polished; if not always inspiring, it was professional and careful. The other, from Donald Trump, was freewheeling, aggressive, and meandering, occasionally landing a hard blow but often substance-less and hard to follow. But the two debates intersected at times, sometimes raucously, as Trump repeatedly broke in to interrupt Clinton. 
 
 It was a commanding performance from the Democratic nominee. Clinton delivered a series of detailed answers on subjects ranging from race to the Middle East to tax policy. Meanwhile, she delivered a string of attacks on Trump, assailing him for stiffing contractors, refusing to release his tax returns, fomenting birtherism, and caricaturing black America. She stumbled only occasionally, but left few openings for Trump. She remained calm and often smiling as Trump repeatedly attacked her and interrupted her answers—doing it so often that moderator Lester Holt, often a spectral presence at the debate, finally cut in twice in short order to chide him. (Vox counted 40 instances; Clinton made some of her own interruptions, but fewer.) Clinton displayed a sort of swagger perhaps not seen since her hearing before Congress on Benghazi. 
 
 The Republican, on the other hand, was erratic, vague, and frequently appeared rude. Where Clinton offered sometimes dull policy prescriptions, Trump stuck to description, diagnosing problems—offshoring of jobs, violence in Chicago, the decay of American infrastructure—but providing nearly nothing in the way of solutions to them, even when pressed by Holt. He cut into Clinton’s answers, interruptions that she seemed almost to welcome because of the contrast they helped draw. Trump seldom stuck to one topic in an answer. A question about why he hadn’t released his tax returns somehow ended with a diatribe about the quality of American airports. (That support for infrastructure improvement was one of the few moments that won the praise of progressive commentators.) He yelled, he scowled, and, somewhat peculiarly, he sniffled through the 90-minute contretemps. 
 
 Trump seemed early on to be trying to be solicitous. “Secretary Clinton—is that OK? Yes? Good. I want you to be happy, it’s very important to me,” he said, with a faint smirk. But soon he couldn’t resist cutting in. Clinton assailed Trump for cheering on a housing bust, saying that 9 million Americans lost their jobs. Rather than deny it, Trump boasted, “It’s called business!” As the debate went on, Trump seemed to get more and more peevish. Ahead of the debate, Trump advisers told reporters that he was not preparing extensively, and while there was some speculation that they might simply be depressing expectations, it showed. By the end of the night, he looked as shell-shocked as Barack Obama at the end of the first 2012 debate against Mitt Romney. 
 
 That isn’t to say that Trump didn’t get a few good licks in. Employing the improvisatory, pugilistic style that served him well in the GOP primaries, he jabbed at her on several favorite topics. He worked hard to tie Clinton to NAFTA, the 1990s free-trade agreement overseen by President Bill Clinton. It’s a major topic for Trump, who has found it resonates well with white-working-class voters in the Rust Belt. Having connected her with that, Trump argued that Clinton was dissembling in her opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership and would reverse her stance once in office. 
 
 He also assailed Clinton for her use of a private email server while secretary of state, and mentioned her invocation of the term “superpredator” during 1990s crime discussions, a term advocates have called racially coded and for which Clinton has apologized. 
 
 But the night was Clinton’s. Her jabs landed time and again. (A few flat one-liners were a different matter.) As the debate ended, for example, she told the story of Alicia Machado, a former Miss Universe who says she became a citizen to vote against Trump. Trump tried to cut in, asking where she got the story. She also worked at length to tie Trump to the idea of trickle-down economics, a connection he readily accepted. “The wealthy are going to create tremendous jobs,” he said. 
 
 She also pressed hard on why Trump had not released his tax returns. “First, maybe he’s not as rich as he says he is. Second, maybe he’s not as charitable as he claims to be,” she said, and added that he might be heavily leveraged. Then she added, “Maybe he doesn’t want all of you to know that he’s paid nothing in federal taxes.” It was bold speculation, but Trump did little to rebut it. He said that he could not release his taxes until an IRS audit was complete, although the IRS has said he is free to release his returns at any time. 
 
 Clinton was aided, at times, by Holt, who asked Trump several pointed questions. He forced the Republican to defend his espousal of the “birther” lie against Barack Obama, attempting to falsely blame Clinton and claiming that he’d been satisfied once Obama released his long-form birth certificate in 2011. (In fact, Trump continued to push birther theories for years afterward, only disavowing them earlier this month.) Later, when Trump tried to claim that he had opposed the war in Iraq, Holt repeatedly contradicted him. (Trump called the oft-proven fact “a mainstream media nonsense.”) On balance, Holt asked Trump more pointed questions that he did Clinton, though Trump also, to be blunt, has more to answer for. The crowd, instructed to be quiet, mostly sat on its hands for the debate, but as the end approached, members got into the act, too, loudly cheering Clinton on a couple of occasions. 
 
 But Clinton was also aided by Trump. In one of the more confusing moments of the evening, he said that Clinton had “been fighting ISIS your entire adult life.” The group dates back to 1999 by the most liberal definition. When Holt asked about race and policing in America, Trump delivered a version of a spiel from his stump speech, describing the squalor of inner-city crime and suggesting that stop-and-frisk could help. Clinton criticized the answer, saying Trump failed to understand the vibrancy of black communities, eliciting a noisy “ugh.” He also raised eyebrows by referring to Obama as “your president.” At the end, when asked whether he’d support Clinton if she won, Trump gave a meandering answer, complaining that Clinton’s ads were unfair to him and he didn’t “deserve” it, and saying he’d considered a harsh attack on her family but opted against it. The spiel was strange; Trump seemed to be taken aback by the pressures on a presidential candidate. Only under duress from Holt did Trump say he would support a President Hillary Clinton. 
 
 Historically, debates have tended to have little effect on the ultimate result of the election, and little lasting effect on polls. But this was precisely the performance Clinton had wanted. With polls showing a dead heat, Democrats have been beginning to panic, with the pitch increasing ahead of the debate, as supporters wondered whether Clinton could perform, and whether Trump would shoot himself in the foot or manage to appear presidential. It’s also tough to predict the response of voters to a debate, and while Trump performances during the GOP primary were often mediocre at best, he still scored high marks with his supporters. 
 
 But Clinton’s delight was barely hidden by the end of the night. When Trump concluded an increasingly angry spiel directed at her—"I have a winning temperament. I know how to win"—the Democrat paused for a brief moment, smiled at the camera, said, “Woo! Okay!” and did a little shimmy before answering. It was the happiest she had looked in public in the last 20 months. 
 
 —David A. Graham ||||| Off Message 5 takeaways from the first presidential debate She hits him where it hurts, and his defensiveness makes him seem wimpy. 
 
 There were a couple of not-so-very-subtle signals here inside of Hofstra University that Donald Trump lost Monday night’s highly-anticipated debate against Hillary Clinton, and badly. 
 
 The first was the audible sound of groaning by some of his supporters (picked up by my attentive colleague Steve Shepard) inside the debate hall as Trump meandered self-defensively through a succession of answers against a very focused, very energized and very well-rehearsed Hillary Clinton. 
 
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 Another tell: After the 90-minute sparring match finished, Clinton’s team practically bounded into the spin room – more in glassy-eyed disbelief than visible elation that things had gone so much better than expected. The GOP nominee’s people, by contrast, dribbled into the media pen like surly seventh-graders headed for homeroom the day before summer vacation. “F—k, let’s do this,” a prominent Trump surrogate said before diving into a scrum. 
 
 Trump and his new-ish messaging team have labored mightily to turn the avatar of populist rage into a reasonable facsimile of someone who you could see sitting in the Oval Office. But this best-laid plan unraveled on Monday – amid Clinton’s steely assault and the dignified interrogation of NBC’s Lester Holt, who struck a deft balance between facilitator, BS detector and lion tamer. 
 
 Within minutes of the opening bell, Clinton’s attacks forced domesticated Donald to go feral – he bellowed, interrupted her repeatedly, grunted, and toward the bedraggled end, became muted and pouty. 
 
 “It was bizarre,” said Barack Obama’s campaign manager David Plouffe, who, like many Clinton allies, seemed visibly relieved. “He was clearly rattled, and clearly focused on defending himself, which I’m told narcissists are prone to do, and he clearly faded at the end. It’s not like she’s going to jump out to a 10-point lead, but this was good.” 
 
 Whether or not this reverses Trump’s momentum, or reestablishes Clinton's control of the race is an open question. Who won is not. Here are five takeaways. 
 
 Trump was wimpy when defensive. He is supposed to be the big meanie but it was Clinton who hit him where it hurt most. It doesn’t take a Jung (or even Dr. Phil after a couple of Bud Lights) to figure out that the GOP nominee – who boasts like a barfly – just might be over-compensating. Hence, Clinton, who started the debate a little tentatively, quickly launched into a carefully planned program of Freudian mind-games, contrasting her own middle-class businessman dad (who had his own issues) with Trump’s imperious, larger-than-life father Fred who launched his son’s business career but also was said to be extremely tough on him. 
 
 First she started in with a paean to her father’s running a small printing business in Chicago (This might be the first time a candidate has described, in detail, the silk-screen squeegee process on a debate stage) – then she pivoted to mocking supposedly self-made Trump’s start in the real estate business. “You know, Donald was very fortunate in his life and that's all to his benefit. He started his business with $14 million, borrowed from his father,” she said icily. 
 
 “My father gave me a very small loan in 1975 and I built it into a company that's worth many, many billions of dollars,” he responded weakly – and so it went on a range of topics. 
 
 Whether it was because Clinton was so well prepped, and Trump was so breezily unprepared – or had a simple case of opening night jitters – the bully-boy nominee abandoned his most effective mode of debate combat, answering an attack with a harsher one. She went right for Trump’s ego – questioning his questionable $11 billion net worth, his boastful record on job creation and picking apart his tough talk on fighting ISIS. 
 
 View The 10 most memorable moments of the presidential debate Here are the most memorable and important moments of the night from the first presidential debate at Hofstra University on Monday. 
 
 In 2007, preparing for a primary race she’d eventually lose, Clinton told me that the key to presidential political campaigns was understanding that the most effective attacks weren’t about exploiting someone’s weaknesses but challenging an opponent’s perceived strengths. When confronted with that assault, Trump wilted and offered a series of meandering answers that had his Republicans wincing. “It was a draw,” former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown said. “But he was on the defensive far too much. That’s a direct result of his inexperience.” 
 
 What about the Clinton Foundation? The former secretary’s debate team (including longtime aide Phillippe Reines, who snapped a pre-debate photo in a Trump circled-finger pose) expected him to savage her on the various questions raised about her family’s foundation. They were worried about it. While he hammered her ever-so-briefly on emails, he was so engaged in self-justification, he flat-out forgot to pursue an attack that could have made the night a lot less lousy. 
 
 His “30 years” attack worked – and he’ll use it again. Trump may have lost the first debate, but he’s proven to be a fast learner, and is likely to come back stronger in early October for the second debate, a town hall style affair, in St. Louis. And there were a few gold nuggets strewn in the wreckage of Hofstra – the most valuable an assault (demonstrable and fact-checker-friendly) on Clinton’s effectiveness in 25-plus years of public life. 
 
 The been-there-not-done-that argument was particularly useful when coupled with his usual slams on Bill Clinton’s passage of the increasingly unpopular NAFTA agreement from the 1990s and Hillary Clinton’s election-year flip-flop from TPP booster to opponent. 
 
 “When she started talking about this, it was really very recently,” Trump said of her opposition to the trade deal. “She's been doing this for 30 years. And why hasn't she made the agreements better? The NAFTA agreement is defective. Just because of the tax and many other reasons, but just because of the fact.” 
 
 When Clinton claimed that she planned to “really work to get new jobs and to get exports that helped to create more new jobs.” He scoffed, and shot back, “But you haven't done it in 30 years or 26 years.” 
 
 Clinton effectively attacked his business career. Trump’s attempt to head off debate-night questions about his five-year campaign promoting the birther slander against Barack Obama was a humbling face-plant. His attempt to pin the origin of the charge against Clinton associate Sid Blumenthal was semi-effective with the political press, but it withered under the insistent interrogation of an African-American moderator determined to extract an apology or reasonable explanation. Trump offered neither – and suggested Obama should actually be grateful he pursued the canard because it’s now been resoundingly put to rest. 
 
 Politically, his tortured explanation helps energize black voters – who already oppose him in historic numbers. But later in the debate, Clinton plucked the strains of what could be a genuine crossover hit this fall among ever-elusive white working-class voters and independents: Trump’s failure to turn over his tax returns. Clinton went there with a vengeance – engaging in a little Trump-esque fact-free speculation about the motives of the billionaire developer-turned-reality TV star. 
 
 “So you've got to ask yourself, why won't he release his tax returns?” Clinton mused, with relish. “And I think there may be a couple of reasons. First, maybe he's not as rich as he says he is. Second, maybe he's not as charitable as he claims to be. Third, we don't know all of his business dealings... Or maybe he doesn't want the American people, all of you watching tonight, to know that he's paid nothing in federal taxes, because the only years that anybody's ever seen were a couple of years when he had to turn them over to state authorities when he was trying to get a casino license, and they showed he didn't pay any federal income tax.” 
 
 Trump’s answer did more harm than good: 
 
 “That makes me smart,” he said – referring to his business, not his political, acumen. 
 
 Her most effective attack – and his worst answer. If the GOP nominee needed any more proof that preparation trumps bombast in a general election debate, he got it when Clinton launched a merciless attack on his habit of stiffing contractors who have labored on his construction projects over the years. Again, Clinton brought it back to her father, describing how bad he would have felt if one of his clients had accepted his work without paying his bill. 
 
 "I’ve met dishwashers, painters, architects, marble installers, drapery installers, who you refused to pay when they finished the work you asked them to do,” Clinton said, delivering a carefully scripted attack. “We have an architect in the audience who designed one of your clubhouses at one of your golf courses. It's a beautiful facility. It immediately was put to use. And you wouldn't pay what the man needed to be paid, what he was charging you to do.” 
 
 This is a particular dangerous issue for a candidate whose entire campaign is rooted in fighting for the working class -- and his flippant response, yet again, gave comfort to his enemies. 
 
 “Maybe he didn't do a good job and I was unsatisfied with his work,” Trump quipped.
– The Hillary Clinton-Donald Trump showdown on Monday night was billed as the most anticipated in many years, and it did not disappoint, according to the Hill, which describes the clash as one between "the more incisive and prepared Clinton and Trump, who leaned heavily on instinct and combativeness." Five other takes on the debate, which many analysts are calling a win for Clinton: Glenn Thrush at Politico calls it a clear loss for Trump, who "became muted and pouty" toward the end. Clinton "went right for Trump's ego," and he "wilted and offered a series of meandering answers" when challenged on things like his wealth and his record of job creation, writes Thrush, who believes Trump "flat-out forgot to pursue" a line of attack on the Clinton Foundation. FiveThirtyEight kept track of the number of interruptions, and Trump comes out way ahead on that score: He had three full-fledged interruptions, where he seized the floor, compared to zero for Clinton, and 24 "fleeting interjections" while his rival kept talking, compared to five for Clinton. The biggest contrast may have been between styles, not policy positions, according to Alexander Burns at the New York Times. "He shouted, interrupted, and sniffed. She kept a level tone and wielded prefab one-liners," writes Burns, who thinks Clinton prevailed on issues of race, gender, and national security, while Trump was strongest when portraying himself as a political outsider. Paul Farhi at the Washington Post takes a look at the moderation and finds that NBC News anchor Lester Holt played a "largely passive role," declining to intervene as "Trump interrupted Clinton and made a series of questionable assertions," though he did seem "to push harder on the Republican businessman" than on Clinton. Farhi notes that Holt's questions didn't cover issues such as "Supreme Court nominations, Social Security, gun control, abortion, student loans, military affairs and health care, especially the Affordable Care Act." It was a debate that highlighted the stark choice voters face, and one where the "two contenders did, in fact, play to their strengths," decides Gerald F. Seib at the Wall Street Journal. "He to his ability to connect with voters on visceral terms, she on her ability to move smoothly from subject to subject with an air of authority." Trump, however, sometimes "seemed a bit too eager to interrupt and play the part of the bully," he writes, while Clinton "occasionally seemed on the verge of appearing smug." (Click for 12 of the debate's standout back-and-forths.)