Well, if you’re looking for a vice president, discuss it could Have had some impact, you might go back to 1976, when we ever had a televised vice presidential debate. My old mentor, Doug Bailey, an adviser to the Ford-Dole campaign in 1976, always claimed that the debate between Bob Dole and Walter Mondale VP – in which Dole referred to “Democrat wars” as: “If we added up The number of people killed and wounded in the Democrats’ wars this century would be “enough to fill the city of Detroit” – was damaging enough to cost the Ford-Dole ticket the handful of votes it needed to win Win the ’76 election.

Caveats aside, expectations of the impact of this debate are and should be quite low.

But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot to learn about campaign strategy from tonight’s debate.

The fascinating thing about vice presidential debates is how difficult they are for the two participants. Not only must they be prepared to defend their own records and words, but they must also be adept at defending the ideas and words of those at the forefront of their cards. And Walz faces a third challenge: he finds himself in a corner and has to defend a government in which he does not work or in which he was not involved at all.

I suspect we will see both Walz and Vance attempt to force their opponent into his own words, particularly those that each believes contradict the other’s views on their presidential candidates. I suspect Walz has memorized every bad thing Vance has ever said about Trump, and I would be shocked if he didn’t try to regurgitate most of it tonight.

I also suspect that Vance will work hard to use the words “Biden-Harris” or “Biden-Harris administration” as much as possible (it might be worth using them on your various bingo cards). As numerous polls show, Biden proved to be far less popular with voters than perhaps even the Democrats suspected. The ease with which Harris was able to adjust her personal ratings tells me that being “Biden’s VP” wasn’t good for her brand. But “Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee” is much more appetizing to many Democrats.

If you’ve noticed, Trump has been stepping up his efforts to remind voters – sometimes in a very clumsy way – that Harris is part of the “Biden-Harris” administration. That’s why he has tried to denigrate the response to the storm – an attempt to get them to appear in an official role in response to the storm and perhaps even stand next to Biden for a photo op. Trump has also sought to link Harris to Biden’s foreign policy challenges, including the growing crisis in the Middle East.

The point is: The Trump campaign appears to have concluded that it needs to reconnect Harris with Biden as much as possible if it wants Trump to be seen as a candidate of change. That’s probably the right strategy at this point, but it’s also a reminder that the Harris campaign has beaten the Trump campaign — so far — in the race to define it for the country.

So I’ll be watching to see what messages both candidates try to convey on stage when they distract from the actual questions being asked of them. How many times will Walz say “Project 2025” and will it surpass or match Vance’s “Biden-Harris” retorts?

I’m also curious to see how much these two prioritize their own brands over their competitors’ brands on stage. Biden was also seen as a good team player during his vice presidential debates, meaning he was more than willing to sacrifice any of his personal strengths to be at the top of the ticket. Dick Cheney was seen as a vice president who apparently didn’t mind sacrificing his own brand to support George W. Bush’s. But I’m old enough to remember Democrats grumbling about John Edwards’ efforts in the 2004 debate, when many activists who supported John Kerry thought Edwards was more worried about his own future as president than about Kerry’s.

Bottom line: The best way to gauge how well a candidate does tonight is by how much cleanup the top of the ticket will do later in the week. And if this is a debate that’s more of a surrogate back and forth, then the other thing to learn is the issues/ideas that each campaign thinks is its best chance, the small remaining portion to woo persuadable voters.