If you’re going to try to convince the world that your opponent is “weird,” it’s probably best if you’re not actually the weird one.

Yet leftist Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who slung the “you’re weird” attack around at Vance before the debate, actually said in the first and only VP debate on October 1 that he is friends with school shooters. Which school shooters? After the debate, Walz crankily dodged questions about his school shooter friends while getting a slice of pizza with his equally weird wife. Can you imagine what would have happened if JD Vance had said this?

This is also a guy who is super friendly to Minnesota rioters, so not sure why we’re surprised. Wisconsin folks who live in the Minnesota media market aren’t.

The eloquently gifted JD Vance was obviously the debate winner. When the left and CNN’s panelists are left arguing that “VP debates won’t move the needle” and “everyone knows the vice president doesn’t create policy,” you know their guy (Walz) lost. Walz admitted during the debate that he’s a “knucklehead” who sometimes gets caught up in his own “rhetoric.”

Most voters don’t want a knucklehead dealing with Iran.

Here are the 5 major takeaways from the VP debate:

1. Vance isn’t “weird.” He’s actually really smart

This was most of America’s first introduction to the Ohio Senator, and he was nothing like the media’s false caricature of him. He was incredibly intelligent and eloquent but also very civil, dignified, and, well, presidential. This isn’t surprising to anyone who has fairly followed his career. After all, he’s a best-selling novelist.

The best Democrats and liberal media commentators could do was argue that he seemed like a different person in the debate. Yeah, he did. Because he’s not like the fun-house-mirror version, the media were trying to sell us. That reduces trust in THEM, not him.

Here’s Vance’s major accomplishment: He vanquished forever the naysayers who thought Trump shouldn’t have picked him and made the former president’s judgment look great.

Perhaps most importantly, he gives confidence to potential Trump voters who are put off by the former president’s bombastic personality and unpredictability. They can trust that Vance would be a calm, reasonable, and civil rudder on the showman president’s worst instincts. That matters.

At times, Vance missed opportunities to go after Walz on various misstatements and distortions (we wanted him to explain why the border bill was bad, for example, and to more clearly explain how liberal Walz’s policies are in Minnesota), but overall, this seemed to be an attempt to be the polar opposite of Trump on civility. That could move some undecided voters by giving them reassurance. He did well on the likability “would I want to have a beer with this person” test (although it would probably be wine. Vance is an interesting guy – he appeals both to red-meat voters and to the intellectual class).

Both of the candidates were refreshingly civil, by the way. This is how all Americans should be able to debate.

2. Vance made a very strong policy case for Trump

Vance did a great job explaining Trump’s policies crystal clear, making them understandable and clarifying them for voters.

Vance makes the case for Trump better than Trump makes the case for Trump.

Trump is a less disciplined speaker. His stream-of-consciousness style, while humorous and authentic, often veers away from his best arguments into tangents (he also has speaking strengths).

Vance is a very disciplined speaker. Time and again, no matter what they asked him, he pivoted back to his core message: Kamala Harris has had 3.5 years to do all of this stuff, and she’s made it worse. Grocery prices are worse. The border is worse. And so on. He focused like a laser beam on the two issues that voters care most about, which happen to be the Trump team’s strengths: The economy and the border.

And he did a great job neutralizing some of the issues that Republicans get hammered on, such as abortion and healthcare. Vance was clearly speaking to women.

He essentially delivered the closing argument in the election. Trump should not debate Harris again (unless she agrees to Megyn Kelly as a moderator, which she won’t) because he won’t make a better closing argument than this.

3. Walz lies a lot

Tim Walz told so many whoppers. Why didn’t the snidely biased moderators fact-check him on those?

He misled about the abortion bill in Minnesota, which is indeed very radical.

“The statute does not include any specific prohibitions on abortions at any stage of pregnancy,” KARE11 reported.

“The 2023 law also dropped some state reporting requirements for abortion providers and ended the so-called ‘Born Alive Infants Protection Act,'” MPR reported.

According to Patch, Walz and the Democrats in the Minnesota Legislature repealed  the Born Alive Infants Protection Act that had stated that “a born-alive infant as a result of an abortion shall be fully recognized as a human person, and accorded immediate protection under the law.”

He lied when he said border crossings weren’t up under Biden/Harris. What??

This is a pattern. He lied about being in Tiananmen Square before the debate. When the New York Times headline is “Tim Walz Said He Was in Hong Kong in 1989 During Tiananmen. Not True,” you know you’ve got a problem.

He tried to explain this whopper during the debate by blathering about riding his bike as a kid and admitting he’s a “knucklehead.”

“Can you explain why you lied”

Tim Walz: so I grew up middle class riding my bike and was a teacher and they elected me 🤷🏼‍♀️ pic.twitter.com/8XtguublSx

— definitely not advice (@stillnotadvice) October 2, 2024

Walz didn’t tell the full story of a woman who died after taking an abortion pill. She didn’t die because she couldn’t get an abortion; she tragically died from a warned-about medical reaction to an abortion pill and because she didn’t get expedient medical care.

And they didn’t even get around to stolen valor.

4. The moderators were awful. Yes, again

When they smugly tried to fact-check Vance by misleading viewers on Haitian migrants (yes they’re legally here but only because Biden-Harris decided to MAKE it so), he called them out on it. Then they cut his mic, which made them look even worse.

They also directed loaded questions and follow-ups at Vance without doing so as often as Walz.

When will Republicans stop playing on the left’s unfair playing fields?

Vance’s greatest gift is his ability to wriggle out of liberal “journalists'” traps. He’s had a lot of practice because, unlike Harris and Walz, he’s constantly done interviews and waded into the media lion’s den, which gave him needed practice.

5. The meme wars matter.

There were three debates: one on TV, one on the radio, and one on social media.

Walz fared best on the radio (although Vance still won).

On TV, he had crazy eyes at times and seemed a lot older than his 60 years (yes, he’s only 60). Vance is 40. He’s handsome. It was shades of Kennedy-Nixon. Scratch that. It was shades of Kennedy-Don Rickles.

However, Walz lost the social media debate by an even greater margin, and young voters may only learn about the debate this way. His crazy eyes were even more pronounced by screenshots, and his “I am friends with school shooters’ line launched a thousand memes.