Can You Hear Me? JD Vance Attempts a Reset in the Desert | RealClearPolitics
RENO The sound from the microphone cut out, and in front of thousands, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance stood in awkward silence. We can t hear you! someone shouted at the suddenly muted running mate of former President Trump. For half a painful moment, he was powerless on stage.
Another microphone materialized.
Can you hear me? Vance asked as he spoke into the replacement. Then the turn: I have been told this is an American-made microphone. The already enthusiastic crowd was delighted and cheered as loud as they had all night.
The little exchange, made possible by a tech glitch and a quick quip, provides an easy metaphor for what the Trump-Vance campaign wants most right now. The senator accepted the Republican nomination for vice president just two weeks ago. In that time, Democrats have launched a campaign to label him weird, his net favorability numbers have gone negative, and the press has spent more time focused on old, private comments than his current public arguments.
Here in Nevada, Sen. Vance seeks a reset. At stops in Las Vegas, where the crowd grew to nearly 3,000 before the local fire marshal closed the doors of the high school gymnasium, and later in Reno for an audience numbering about 2,500, voters hear directly from the candidate. Sources close to the campaign say his job will be that of policy pit bull, deconstructing the record of Vice President Kamala Harris.
He did his best to deliver, condemning the presumed Democratic Party presidential nominee as a wacky San Francisco liberal, arguing that she now inherits all the failures of outgoing President Joe Biden.
My father always used to say campaigns should be positive. So why doesn’t Vance commend Married dog dads with children? I could get behind that.