Newsletter: I watched old Tim Walz and JD Vance debates. Here’s what to expect

Good morning. It is Saturday, Sept. 28. Here’s what’s happening in Opinion.

Republican JD Vance and Democrat Tim Walz face each other Tuesday in their only vice presidential debate, and here’s the good news: Both candidates are well-adjusted adults not easily baited into bizarre, winding, grievance-laden tangents. So if you’re looking for an evening of candidate meltdowns and TikTok-ready zingers, prepare to be disappointed.

I say that based not only on the absence of Donald Trump, but also from watching past debates from Vance’s successful 2022 campaign for Ohio’s U.S. senator and Walz’s 2018 and 2022 runs for Minnesota governor. Both are capable debaters — not at Kamala Harris’ level, but they can both riff on policy and finish their thoughts in a way that Harris’ opponent could not.

That said — and based purely on political expedience and ability, and having nothing to do with honesty or the correctness of their positions — Vance has the edge. He comes off as fluent on policy, and he can nimbly respond to attacks, both areas of extreme weakness for his boss. In the 2022 Ohio Senate debate I watched between Vance and then-Rep. Tim Ryan, he used just about every question from moderators as an opportunity to paint Ryan as petty and hypocritical. When Ryan attacked Vance for his work as a Silicon Valley venture capitalist, Vance put Ryan on his heels by asking which exactly of his own investments Ryan found objectionable. The response was some gibberish about China.

That was when Vance was not nearly as known as he is now — and by known, I mean unliked. Vance in 2024 is a historically unpopular vice presidential nominee, a drawback that only more brightly highlights Walz’s best attribute: People just like the guy.

That came off in his debates with Republican Jeff Johnson in 2018 and Republican Scott Jensen in 2022, both races for Minnesota governor. In both debates, the opponents attacked in ways that Vance did in his debate with Ryan — but with Walz, nothing rattled him. And Walz did indeed get attacked, perhaps because he was the favorite in both races. In 2022, when a moderator asked the candidates to praise each other, all Jensen could muster was that Walz “has a wonderful smile.” Unfazed by the obvious putdown, Walz complimented his opponent for the way he talks about his family. He answered policy questions on climate change, mineral extraction, working with the federal government and pandemic response straightforwardly but not in much detail, something for which both Jensen and Johnson attacked Walz.

And Walz never really took the bait. Nice guys whom people like can do that, and perhaps that is Walz’s biggest advantage over the unpopular yet fully policy-briefed Vance. We’ll see on Tuesday.

Reclassifying cannabis as a Schedule III drug only exacerbates a bad situation. Efforts to curb overdoses are showing signs of success. The Biden administration hopes to build on that by federally reclassifying marijuana from a Schedule I substance (alongside heroin) to Schedule III (with anabolic steroids). This may seem appropriate, but keeping marijuana in the same regulatory framework as pharmaceuticals could lead to disaster, say Leo Beletsky, Shaleen Title and Shanel Lindsay.

Everyone who grasps the risk of nuclear war says Trump shouldn’t be trusted. Going back to the 1940s, the U.S. policy for using nuclear weapons has been this: Only the president can order an attack, and when the president gives the order, the attack must be carried out no matter what. It doesn’t matter if the person in the job is unfit and reckless, as Donald Trump was in his first term. Author Jill Lawrence says that’s another reason the former president shouldn’t become our next president.

Imperial County residents deserve to benefit from a potential lithium boom. One of the most economically distressed counties in California happens to sit on enough lithium to make 400 million batteries and turn the entire U.S. auto industry electric. Manuel Pastor and Chris Benner say locals are understandably wary of the mining bonanza: “Imperial Valley residents, who have been on the receiving end of get-rich schemes around water and real estate in the past, are worried that their political leaders may be giving away the store.”

Desperate for good news about climate change? Consider the pace of clean energy growth. To understand the upside of addressing climate change, consider Moore’s Law, which says that microchip density doubles every two years. “Like computer chips, many other technologies also get exponentially more affordable, though at different rates,” writes J. Doyne Farmer. “Some of the best examples are renewable energy technologies such as solar panels, lithium batteries and wind turbines.”

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