UNIVERSITY IS LONGWOOD BUT VEEP DEBATE LOUSY

Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia was the setting for the first and only 2016 Vice Presidential debate.   I was more than a little annoyed when the Republican candidate, Indiana Governor Mike Pence, falsely called the institution Norwood.   Longwood University students, including a proud family member of mine, must have been impressed.   Longwood is an outstanding  university, but any school should, at the very least, be appreciatively  named correctly by guests on their campus.    The university deserves Pence's apology -- or just like his running mate is prone to do -- does Pence not apologize either?

I guess the name glitch was an honest mistake,  but this was the only university where Pence and the Democratic candidate, Virginia Senator Tim Kaine would debate in this election.  Surely Pence could get the university name  fact correct, or maybe bothering with such details affecting ordinary people aren't that important to him.  Of course, Kaine had an unfair advantage since he was more familiar with his home state, plus he had even once been Governor of Virginia.  Unfairness is a theme the seed of which the Republican  Presidential candidate may be not so subtly planting as a potential possible accusation he'll unleash if he doesn't win this November election.  

I couldn't help thinking that Pence might have become infected with just saying whatever came to mind regardless of accuracy as his running mate is infamous for doing.    Pence continually having to defend all of his running mate's denials that he didn't say what he actually said, I can imagine  results in discerning fact from fiction becoming more than a little challenging. 

The candidates talking over each other angered me as that is not debate.   Let the speaker spout their mistruths, falsehoods, distortions -- then the opponent counters with the facts.   That's the purpose of rebuttal.   What's so difficult about doling that?   Difficulty occurs when the issue to be addressed is avoided and the subject is even changed which infuriates me, too.    Just cut off the sound on their microphones when they talk over each other,  ignore the moderator, or if they don't answer the question -- that's a penalty that will train them real fast.      

I get disgusted with name-calling and labeling, also, but that's a tactic used primarily at the higher presidential candidate level this election and mostly by Gov. Pence's running mate.   Let's cut that presidential candidate's microphone, too, when he pollutes the airways in that manner.  I know, easier said than done.

One of these two Veep  candidates will become only a heart beat away from the Presidency.  Though we can't vote separately for a Vice President, maybe we should give serious consideration to whether or not we would want a person in that vice-presidential position who willingly and so readily has been reinforcing his running mate's obvious falsehoods -- lies that even a child would recognize.