J.D. Vance: The most important outcome of his debate performance against Walz.

With a notable exception near the end of his debate with Tim Walz on Tuesday, J.D. Vance put forward a smooth debate performance. He controlled the flow of the conversation and found ways to put Walz on the defensive even on issues, like abortion and climate change, where Democrats have the advantage. Vance's performance might have offered him a successful reintroduction to people who knew him only as the online troll insisting that women abandon their cats and get on with the business of procreation, but it's unlikely to change the course of the election. What it could do, though, is shore up Vance's position as heir apparent to Trump within the Republican Party. Vance's poor public image since his selection as running mate in July has led to questions about not just whether he's the wrong pick for Trump, but whether he's prime-time enough to be the standard-bearer going forward. In the debate, he finally fulfilled his role as the candidate who's capable of expressing Trumpism much better than Trump. All of which is to say, it will feel all the more crushing when Trump inevitably turns on him and Vance doesn't even make it to the Iowa caucuses.

The Minnesota governor, who'd warned the Harris campaign before his selection as running mate that he wasn't a very good debater, was reportedly all nerves and anxiety in the days leading up to the debate. That certainly showed early in the evening. He had not, unlike his opponent, been educated on the master arts of debate at Yale University. Even so, he was good enough once he settled in, getting across most of the points the campaign needed him to make. He really seemed to get into the rhythm of it just as the debate was about to end, when he asked Vance who won the 2020 election and Vance refused to answer the question. The Surge, though, does have to suggest that Walz's performances under pressure might improve with a little more practice. By our count, only twice since he became the running mate—once in a joint interview on CNN, and then again in this debate—has the Harris campaign put Walz in a position to answer difficult questions. He does not look particularly comfortable doing so, especially when addressing exaggerations he's made in the past. Of course, if you're the Harris campaign, it's reasonable that your response to this would be to do fewer contentious interviews and not more.

All right, what's going on the big dog this week ... let's go with Purgegate . At a Pennsylvania speech last Sunday, Trump suggested that crimes like retail theft could be resolved by giving the police "one real rough, nasty" and "really violent day"—or even "hour"—to rough up criminals. "The word will get out," Trump said, and the crime "will end immediately, you know?" Several thoughts about this. The first is that some would say the police already are afforded a day, or an hour, to do as they please—every day, and every hour. Second, this wouldn't work on a practical level! If you give regular people a day to commit whatever crimes they want, as in the movie The Purge, they can perhaps get the crime out of their system; if you give authorities a day, criminals will just wait for the next day. Third, and most important, it remains concerning how much joy Trump derives from fantasizing about even the temporary elimination of civil protections. He might enjoy those protections should he ever find himself in custody again! Speaking of ...

The courts this week unsealed a redacted 165-page filing from special counsel Jack Smith laying out much of the evidence his team has gathered in the Jan. 6 case against Donald Trump. The case has been out of the public eye since the spring, when the Supreme Court heard Trump's arguments for "presidential immunity," then granted presidential immunity for "official acts" of office. Smith's filing, for Judge Tanya Chutkan's perusal, argues that Trump's actions fell well outside his official duties as president. We'll eventually see—or we won't, depending on whether Trump wins—if the courts buy this argument. For now, though, the document has plenty of new information to dish about, even after years of public reports and investigations into Jan. 6. It alleges, for example, that Trump personally tweeted, rather than shouted at a staffer to tweet for him, that Vice President Mike Pence "didn't have the courage" to overturn the election results. It goes into detail about the times Pence tried and failed to get Trump to recognize that the election was over, conversations they had as "friends" and "running mates," not as executive branch officials. Trump also reportedly told his family members: "It doesn't matter if you won or lost the election. You still have to fight like hell." Trump reacted to the filing's release by losing his mind , calling the whole thing a deep state attempt to interfere with the election a month out. That's such analog thinking, though. The deep state has far more advanced tricks up its sleeve ...

The Georgia congresswoman is getting back to her roots. After spending some time in the past couple of years as a leadership ally who'd urge her allies on the far right to think practically, she's apparently returned to being a full-bore dimwit. On Thursday night, just after 11—the postin' hour—Greene tweeted the following : "Yes they can control the weather. It's ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can't be done." Reading the post feels like walking into a conversation between two rocks midway through. In the generous reading of this tweet—and the Surge is nothing if not generous—the pronoun they refers to the Democrats, or the establishment, or the deep state, and not the good folks behind the space lasers . And because it came on the heels of a Thursday morning post in which she showed a map of Hurricane Helene's destructive path over red America and "how hurricane devastation could affect the election," we know she must be referring to ... Democrats controlling Hurricane Helene. So to recap: Hurricane Helene's unusually widespread devastation had nothing to do with its path over the present-day Jacuzzi that is the Gulf of Mexico, and everything to do with President Biden or one of his minions (Robert Mueller?) pressing the "destroy red America" button. We're kicking ourselves for not seeing that this is the pivot climate-change denialism would take once the worsening devastation couldn't be ignored. It's fascinating to look at the human brain speeding in reverse.

The former first lady's memoir is due out Tuesday, and the Surge is already camped outside Barnes & Noble to beat the rush. Much of the Melania Trump marketing campaign has involved produced clips on social media in which she speaks vaguely about her nude modeling work or how it's nice to be a mother. According to the early book obtainers at the Guardian, though, there is at least one touch of news in the book: Melania Trump supports abortion rights. (In a truly wild coincidence, she's actually married to the guy who eliminated the right to an abortion.) "Why should anyone other than the woman herself have the power to determine what she does with her own body?" she writes in the memoir, according to the Guardian . "A woman's fundamental right of individual liberty, to her own life, grants her the authority to terminate her pregnancy if she wishes." And how! Now, the Surge doesn't want to go full Dems control the weather here, but it may not be a coincidence that this is coming out just as the Republican ticket tries to soften its abortion position ahead of the election.

The path to a Democratic House majority runs through several districts that Republicans won in a very bad 2022 cycle for New York Democrats. Given the importance of these races, it shouldn't be surprising that we're learning an awful lot of new information about New York Republican members just as voters begin to take their final look at the candidates. Last week , we wrote about the report that Rep. Anthony D'Esposito had given his lover a position on the payroll. (He also allegedly gave his fiancée's daughter a job, to be fair and balanced.) This week, the New York Times reported that Rep. Mike Lawler, running against former Democratic Rep. Mondaire Jones, wore blackface as part of a Michael Jackson Halloween costume. Lawler didn't deny it and apologized for it, so we'll see what effect it has on a tight race. The person we would not like to be right now, though, is Rep. Marc Molinaro, the other major Democratic target in Long Island. Oppo dumps come in threes, and it's his turn next. If there are any illicit girlfriends on the payroll, get 'em outta there. Any Facebook photos featuring poor Halloween costume choices? Delete, delete, delete!