Investors, founders and policymakers in Australia — like anyone operating within or in opposition to America’s sphere of influence — have been monitoring the US election campaign extremely closely. With deepening instability in the Middle East and a fragile global economic outlook, there’s plenty at stake.
But those hoping for a no-holds-barred slugfest in the debate today between vice-presidential candidates JD Vance and Tim Walz — or at least something as spectacular as last month’s clash between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump — would have walked away sorely disappointed.
Perhaps that was inevitable, given it is received wisdom in the US that veep debates rarely move the needle. It was a relatively sedate and civil affair, and both men mostly sparred over policy, with a few testy digressions.
Vance, a Yale-educated lawyer who clearly thrives in a structured debate setting, appeared cool, collected and focused — and notably more restrained than in his numerous podcast appearances over the past few years. In those, he’d been far less gun-shy about his various right-wing fixations such as ‘childless cat ladies’, which have proved a goldmine for Democratic opposition research.
