Noah alleges that J. D. Vance is taking the Trump campaign off message — that at once the Trump campaign should have been prepared for the media to relitigate things Vance said about cat ladies during the time he was running hard to the right in Ohio’s Senate primary but also that it shouldn’t be discussing these subjects at all.

I too think the Trump campaign had a timing problem. Typically, veep candidates are introduced, the media pour their venom on them (if they are Republicans) for a week before the convention starts, and then the candidate gets to make a big first impression. Instead, Vance was introduced late and had his say before the media and Democrats spent a week pouring unbelievable amounts of energy into defining him across social media.

I think Noah takes the accusation too far when he concludes,

There is time between now and Election Day for Vance to soften his image among persuadable voters who don’t spend their days consuming hyperbole and bombast that populates the darkest corners of the internet. Vance has yet to show interest in that project, much less the acumen to pull it off.

I think it’s wrong to blame him for appearing on Megyn Kelly and answering the questions she posed to him. Do we want our candidates to be sheltered from all unscripted media appearances the way the Dems have been doing?

All the public rallies from the Trump campaign have featured J. D. Vance, and Vance’s solo rallies in Nevada were relentlessly on message about the Biden/Harris record at the border, their foreign policy leading to geopolitical disorder, etc. He was doing the typical job of the vice-presidential candidate, which is to serve as an energetic attacker.

His convention speech was also on message and focused on the strengths he brings to the ticket, namely his inspiring story and his obvious connection to voters from a certain class and background.

The accusation that Vance has moderated and modulated his tone since the Ohio primaries (where he had to overcorrect the impression that he was a lib), is basically synonymous with the anodyne observation that J. D. Vance ran to the right in the primary and had run to the center in his general election, and now in this one.

Some controversy is good. If the media didn’t have Vance’s self-admittedly trollish social conservatism to work with to demoralize suburban swing voters, they would be praising Doug Burgum’s comments on Roe v. Wade in order to further demoralize pro-life voters. And the “off-message” thing can be applied as much to the in-the-tank Democratic media, which are now alleging that Vance, the father of three biracial kids, is a white supremacist or was too kind to a transgender classmate.