Of all of the spectacles we see during a presidential race, few are subject to as much pre-game hype as presidential debates. This is perhaps understandable because the campaign season drags on for months and there is only so much actual news being made. In reality, there are typically few surprises in store. Aside from the occasional zinger, it's not as if the candidates are likely to say anything they haven't already pitched innumerable times during rallies and interviews. But this election may turn out to be a bit different when the contenders for Vice President take the stage tonight. Still, JD Vance doesn't appear particularly worried. In fact, he told reporters this week that he's not even bothering with any debate prep. (Politico)

Ahead of his first and likely only national debate of the presidential cycle, JD Vance prepared for the event at his home in Cincinnati and virtually on Zoom. He recruited Republican Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota to play his opponent in mock sessions. And he brought in Donald Trump’s campaign strategist Jason Miller and his own wife, Usha, to help, people familiar with the debate said.

But in his words, he doesn’t need to get ready.

“We have well developed views on public policy so we don’t have to prepare that much,” Vance said in a Teamsters press call on Wednesday morning. “We feel a lot more confident and frankly, you don’t have to prepare if you don’t have to hide what you say.”

During more "normal" times (assuming you can remember what those looked like), Vance's casual approach would probably be justified. The audience for such a debate tends to be small by comparison and veep contenders rarely say anything that directly contradicts the Presidential candidate. But that may not be the case this year. The reason I say this is because the current administration has taken our previously understood role of the Vice President and turned it on its ear.

Typically, whichever man is eventually dragged across the finish line is little more than the winner of a consolation prize in the form of an office that John Nance Garner once famously described as being "not worth a bucket of warm piss." Normally, a VP only ascends to the big office if they receive "the call." Either the president had died, been rendered incapacitated, or was otherwise removed from power. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris never went through that process. The call never came, and Biden was still there, at least physically. Harris was left in the position of running the country with no constitutional authority to be doing so. This left the entire nation asking on a regular basis who was actually in charge. The meaning of being the Vice President changed virtually overnight, likely in a completely unconstitutional way.

Meanwhile, Joe Biden remained out there somewhere like the Ghost of Presidencies Past, continuing the Weekend at Bernie's administration on a vacation that never seemed to end. I doubt anyone seriously expects a potential Harris presidency to follow such a plotline, but who knows what we should expect at this point? Joe Biden checked out mentally for the most part based on an understandable cognitive decline that sadly affects too many people of a certain age. But Kamala Harris hasn't exactly been rattling off pithy policy commentary or launching brilliant solutions to the nation's ills either. Are her frequent fits of giggling and cackling simply quirky personality traits reflecting nothing more seriously amiss under the surface? Or is there more going on there?

It's impossible to say at this point. But if either Harris or Trump is elected and begins showing signs of cognitive impairment to a serious degree without any explanation, we could be right back in the same boat we find ourselves in now. If that turns out to be the case, both Vance and Walz (to a lesser degree) appear to be a bit more "with the program" during their public appearances. They may need to pick up the baton at any moment and fill in for a bit. The world is currently on fire and we really don't need another bench-warmer being placed in charge of the fate of the free world for another four years. Perhaps we should all be watching this debate a bit more closely than we normally would otherwise.