Video: Pence, Kaine bicker and interrupt each other

Jerry Adler
·Senior Editor

The Tuesday night debate between the genial Sen. Tim Kaine and the undramatic Gov. Mike Pence was expected to be a relatively low-key — or even, frankly, boring — event. Both have long records as legislators and governors with plenty of wonky policy positions.

It didn’t work out that way, though, with both vice presidential candidates interrupting and talking over each other in a way that at times made for impossible viewing.

As Pence launched his prepared attack on the Clinton Foundation, Kaine interrupted:

Kaine: Let me talk about this —

Pence: Senator — this is my time.

Kaine: Isn’t this a discussion?

Not really: It was an argument.

Elaine Quijano, the moderator, was constantly setting time limits (“This is Sen. Kaine’s two minutes…” “I’ll give you 20 seconds…”) that the contestants routinely blew past, before losing themselves in thickets of corrections and clarifications and different ways of trashing the two candidates at the top of the ticket: Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.