"Trump's campaign manager denies he's irked at being upstaged by Pence"

Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway said her boss was “excited” and “proud” after Mike Pence’s debate performance Tuesday night, pushing back against reports that the Manhattan billionaire felt upstaged by his running mate’s superior showing.

“CNN’s John King, reporting from a source close to Trump, that the reviews that Pence did better [than] he did won’t go over well with Trump,” the Huffington Post’s Sam Stein wrote on Twitter Tuesday night. That post was followed shortly by one from CNBC’s John Harwood, who wrote, “Trump adviser on debate after Pence passed up opportunities to defend him: ‘Pence won overall, but lost with Trump.'”

Conway said Wednesday morning on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that such reports were “just not true.”

H/T: Politico

Kellyanne knows darn well *The Donald* hates to be upstaged.

I only caught about 10-15 minutes of the debate so Thank you DJ for (once again) providing a great summary.

American voters who are like me can appreciate both style AND substance with an emphasis on Substance over style. However, there are millions of Americans who are easily influenced by Style or substance (if influenced by substance at all).

In the short time that I watched, Pence indeed did come across just as DJ described "cool, calm and collected." Kaine came across as very knowledgeable but a bit too anxious in giving his response. He kept "interrupting" Pence and THAT can be a turn-off to some viewers/voters who find that behavior to be very impolite to say the least.

Kaine should have paid more attention to how Hillary conducted herself during the first debate vs Trump. She remained "cool, calm and collected" especially when he kept interrupting her while she was speaking. Viewers noticed Trump's repeated interruptions and (most) viewers did NOT like it.

Fortunately for Kaine, he is a highly respected politician and Gentleman….two things that Trump is Not. Still, Kaine lost the CNN/ORC instant poll. And I suspect that a consensus of more scientific polls will yield the same outcome.

Re: Mike Pence's future, DJ wrote:

Pence never had a viable response to defend his running mate. However, Pence certainly succeeded in planting the seeds for his own expected presidential run in 2020. [….]

I concur. In fact, after last night's performance some Repubs are already lamenting that Pence isn't the top of the ticket.

But the truth is, Pence is a right-wing nutjob and dimwit too. However, compared to Trump even Pence looks like a "fit" contender for the presidency.

Until Pence actually runs.