Lowering expectations for Walz?

This sounds a little familiar to me, as the Harris team tried to lower expectations for her as well

So the big debate is tonight. Possibly the last big event for the Presidential election outside of unforeseen circumstances (like another natural disaster). While generally not much rides on Vice Presidential debates, this one might in a round about way make a big difference.

Let's say this goes really well for Tim Walz and the general public thinks he won the debate by enough to shift the momentum back in favor of Harris. This might put more pressure on Trump to debate again (which is apparently still being considered). On the flip side if Vance cleans Walz's clock and enough people believe he won the debate to push momentum in favor of the Trump/Vance ticket, then that would calm any idea that Trump would need to debate again. More likely than not, this would push Harris into even a bigger frenzy about another debate.

Right now, the media is trying to whitewash the hurricane and the lack of response. It is amazing to see how little the media cares about destruction and dead Americans when those things can harm a sitting Democratic President. But make no mistake, this will hit voters hard in those areas and those areas include two key battleground states.

Unless Democrats are hoping enough Republicans die or are unable to vote that it would help them, the lack of response is already a huge problem for them. This would have been a great chance for Harris to get out in front of this with some real leadership. Instead she stayed on the west coast for fundraising and sent out a photo-op acting as if she was engaged. We all know the mocking she has taken for that lame attempt (plug in your damned phone if you are pretending to be on a call with a wired head set and at least put something on the sheet of paper you are taking notes with).

Now the dock worker (longshoremen) are officially on strike, which will cause all sorts of supply chain problems, and Iran just attacked Israel. These were both things that could have been prevented with some real proactive leadership from the Administration. Both events will likely harm Harris' chances with the electorate no matter how they respond in reaction to what we already knew was coming.

So back to the debate. Walz is supposedly not built for a debate, he does not have that skill set, and Democrats are afraid he will let down Harris. Ahem. The same sort of thing was floated about Harris having issues with being prepared (when it turned out she actually had the questions beforehand and knew she would not be challenged or fact checked). They obviously stomped down expectations in spite of knowing full well the advantages that they had going in. She would have had to had been a complete clown to lose that debate.

So I would not be surprised of Walz already has his questions as well, but CNN is going to let each candidate fact check each other (which team Harris/Walz is very upset with). They certainly expected that the moderators would step in to assist like they did on ABC. Will the questions be fair? Doubtful. They will toss softballs at Walz and hit Vance with every crazy thing the left says about him. But I have a feeling that the more these two are required to think on their feet, the better Vance will do. He is simply smarter and more articulate than Walz is. The "folksy" thing only goes so far in a national spotlight where these two are a heartbeat away from the Presidency.