It would be surprising if Mike Pence didn't acquit himself well in Tuesday night's vice presidential debate.
The Indiana governor and former leader of House conservatives is a model of rhetorical discipline who is genuinely well-versed in public policy issues and tends to go high when others go low. He is, in so many ways, everything that Donald Trump is not — including conservative at his core and kind to and about other people.
Regardless of whether he "wins" or "loses" the debate to Democratic vice presidential nominee and Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, Pence has an opportunity to showcase to the American people a simple truth that should reassure Republicans and terrify Democrats: The GOP has a deep and talented bench of future stars and Democrats, well, don't. More important, he has a chance to become the avatar of an emergent Republican Party.
Pence will find himself in the uncomfortable position of defending not only his own ideas and the ticket's platform but Trump's incoherence, intemperate behavior and all-around boorishness. But given that only someone who accidentally drove a railroad spike through his or her own frontal lobe would vote for Trump or Clinton based on the outcome of this way-down-the-marquee VP contest, Pence's challenge — and this is the best way to assess his success in the debate — is to help position himself and his party for 2020, 2024 and beyond.
While Trump's platform is expressed as series of loosely connected conspiracy theories, he has tapped into frustration among a whole new generation of white working-class voters who are willing to give the Republican Party a dance. How Pence begins to frame the GOP appeal to that subset of the electorate — and whether he can do it in ways that also connect with women and minorities — will tell us a lot about whether Republicans can construct a policy rubric and messaging to match the talent of their young guns.
Democrats had exactly one viable candidate to share their ticket with Hillary Clinton, and, not unexpectedly, he got the slot. Kaine was the only one of the people Clinton considered who had experience in both the domestic and foreign policy arenas — and only because, like Clinton, he sought out committee assignments in the Senate that gave him national security credentials.
He's as smart as they come. But he's hardly electrifying, and he'll be in his late 60s in eight years. The House Democratic leader, Nancy Pelosi — the best vote-counter of her generation — is 76. The next two Democrats in line, Steny Hoyer and Jim Clyburn, are 77 and 76, respectively. The new Democratic leader of the Senate in the next Congress, Charles Schumer, is already eligible for Medicare.
Of the 18 Democratic governors, 13 are the same age as Kaine or older. Of the remaining five, three are from states with four electoral votes or fewer, and one was born in Spain. Few have talked about the last Democratic governor, John Bel Edwards of Louisiana, as the future of the party.