One of the oldest cliches in American politics is the so-called “beer test:” which candidate would you rather have a beer with?
It’s one of those stock political platitudes that eggheads love to bloviate about on cable news. Nevertheless, it drives at an enduring truism of American politics, which is that voters value authenticity. They want assurance that the candidate they vote for will fight for the same things when the cameras are off and the talking points are put away.
This theory of candidate authenticity might help us understand how George W. Bush — an affable goofball who seemed at times incapable of taking his foot out of his mouth — beat such polished political professionals as Al Gore and John Kerry in 2000 and 2004, respectively; Bush’s own aides told reporters Kerry was “better than Cicero” on the debate stage. For that matter, even in spite of all his political failings, no one could seriously accuse Donald Trump of not speaking his mind.
All of this was front of mind for me Oct. 1 when Tim Walz and JD Vance faced off at the 2024 Vice Presidential Debate. On style, the contrast was clear: JD Vance delivered a sharp, polished performance, while Tim Walz was more plain-spoken, even fumbling at times. Many political prognosticators have thus pronounced Vance the debate’s clear victor (of course, insofar as vice presidential debates even matter). But to me, even on style alone, the beer test suggests that the pundits are wrong: JD Vance looked like a slippery politician. Tim Walz looked like he was speaking from the heart.
Over and over, Vance found clever ways to wiggle himself out of difficult questions. But it would be insulting to the voting public to act as if all (or even some) of those rhetorical acrobatics passed the sniff test.
In response to a question on climate change, for example, Vance weirdly began conducting a thought experiment: “One of the things that I’ve noticed some of our Democratic friends talking a lot about,” he said, “is…this idea that carbon emissions drives all the climate change. Well, let’s just say that’s true, just for the sake of argument.”
Far from busting out his LSAT flashcards, when CBS’s Norah O’Donnell passed the question over to Walz, he kept it real: “my farmers know climate change is real. They’ve seen 500 year droughts, 500 year floods, back to back,” he said.
On abortion, Vance denied his previous support for a national ban, advocating instead for a “minimum national standard” — whatever that means. Meanwhile, Walz made clear his support for abortion rights and spoke about his own experience going through fertility treatments with his wife.
When asked about gun violence in schools, Vance suggested installing stronger locks and windows. Walz simply replied: “It’s just the guns. And there are things that you can do about it.”
Towards the end of the debate, Walz asked Vance point-blank whether or not Donald Trump lost the 2020 election — and Vance shamelessly deflected, saying “I’m focused on the future.” Evidently not.
Many beltway pundits thought Vance performed well, because he sounded like a well-trained politician. What they seem to have missed is the fact that sounding like a politician is hardly an asset in an era of deep and widespread public cynicism about politics.
And post-debate flash polls bear this out: according to CNN, voters thought Walz was more in touch with “the needs and problems of people like them” than Vance — by a margin of 48% to 35%. They didn’t poll it, but I’m willing to bet that the beer question would have turned up similar results.
There are some obvious problems with choosing a president based on perceived authenticity. For instance, it should count for very little that a candidate is “unapologetically their true self” if their true self is, I don’t know, a racist. Still, we can at least understand why authenticity matters in an era of deep skepticism towards political institutions. If what you see is what you get, it goes a long way towards building trust between candidates and voters. To the extent that the perceived authenticity of the vice presidential candidates will matter in the remainder of this campaign, it’s safe to say Tim Walz pulled out a win for the Harris camp on Tuesday night.
It helps, of course, that deep down, Walz is just a jocular midwestern dad. Like most of us, he didn’t go to Yale Law School, and he doesn’t debate like Cicero — and that’s okay. Our leaders should reflect who we are as a country. And unless we’re a nation of ex-memoirist, ex-venture capitalist, careerist windbags (which, last I checked, we are not), I think it’s pretty clear who passes the beer test in a Vance-Walz matchup.
Contact Beatrice Neilson at neilson@oxy.edu