The VeeP debate was a yawn, Kaine won. But only because liars are losers.

One set of pundits described it as more of a bickerfest than a debate.

I was disappointed that after the cool, calm and collected way that Hillary handled the first presidential debate, to the detriment of Trump, Tim Kaine was unable or unwilling to follow her example.  I found that to be a huge disappointment, to the point where I wanted to turn off the television and find a good book rather than lose those minutes to irritation.

In contrast to Kaine's interruptions, Pence exceeded the performance of the top half of his ticket, in style, but not in substance - or integrity.

When did right wing evangelicals stop believing that lying was a bad thing?  This is selective Bible reading at the very least, both old and new testament, and a complete omission of the 9th commandment.

“the word of the LORD is right; and all his works are done in truth.”  Psalms 33:4

"Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other." Psalms 85:10“Lying lips are abomination to the LORD: but they that deal truly are his delight.” Proverbs 12:22

But neither had anything new or worthwhile to add, either about themselves or their fellow candidates, and Pence is emphatically the loser in the fact checking department.  Pence's sole value in the debate was to deny the crazy on the right, of which he is himself a blind adherent, and to deny both his own voting record and the accumulated gaffes and follies of his presidential candidate.

The fact checking was summed up by the Nation:

He [Pence] also showed that he can lie as well as Trump. Time and time again Kaine or Quijano presented Pence with stands that Trump had taken, only to see the loyal VP nominee deny Trump had ever said any such thing. Pence also lied about his own record, insisting the only reason he tried to zero-out Planned Parenthood’s federal funding was because that was a “fiscally responsible” way to address the deficit. No one believes Pence on that, including his own far-right supporters.
The anodyne, white-haired Pence, who looks like he’d been sent by central casting to play the disarming, grandfatherly right-wing zealot that he is, did his best to make Trump seem like a reasonable presidential candidate Tuesday night. Meanwhile Kaine, “America’s nice dad” (in the words of comedian/author Sara Benincasa), was strangely judged the rude guy by cable pundits. Yes, he did interrupt some, partly when the placid Quijano failed to challenge Pence on any of his dissembling. “Six times tonight I have said to Governor Pence I can’t imagine how you can defend your running mate’s position. And he has not,” Kaine said toward the end of the debate. But Quijano almost never followed up.

I was particularly disappointed that in the discussion of faith in politics, there was no mention of Pence being a creationist who has repeatedly expressed his desire to suppress the study and teaching of evolution, replacing it with faith based baloney not broadly shared by less-extremist Christianity.

What I did not see was any follow through on the Trump threat to attack Bill Clinton for infidelity, which I had expected from Pence has NOT conspicuously been involved in serial adultery, unlike other surrogates, notably Rudely Giuliani or the Nut Gingrich,.

It is never a winning position to simply lie and attempt to deceive.  Only the true cult-ish believers will be persuaded to find merit, and there will be little if any aggregate gain in the long run.

Whatever damage control was accomplished by Pence will be undone in any case when Trump next opens his mouth, or grabs his phone in the wee hours of the morning to begin yet another tweet storm, showing himself to have the obsessive character of a creepy, old, degenerate stalker.