Maybe the vice-presidential debate moderator would've asked Mike Pence about his anti-LGBT record and just ran out of time?
That's how both Tim Kaine and a spokesman for the White House have partly answered questions about why the Indiana governor's anti-LGBT record wasn't raised during this week's debate.
Moderator Elaine Quijano, a CBS News correspondent and weekend anchor of the Evening News, has so far said nothing in response to criticism. A request for comment was unanswered by CBS News. But fingers are meekly being pointed in her direction.
White House press secretary Josh Earnest was asked by the
Washington Blade's
Chris Johnson Wednesday whether it would have been useful to note Pence signed a so-called license to discriminate bill into law in Indiana as governor. The law raised such an uproar that
a "fix" was passed that said it couldn't be used against LGBT people.
Earnest immediately named Quijano while simultaneously saying it wasn't her fault the topic was overlooked.
"I'm not going to second-guess the efforts of Elaine Quijano, who was the moderator last night," he said, according to
a transcript of the press briefing by the White House. "She came prepared with a long list of very serious, direct questions for each of the candidates. And I suspect based on the sharpness of her questions that that was almost certainly one of the questions that she had in her stack. She probably just didn't get around to it."
Earnest answered at length when pressed on whether Pence's anti-LGBT record ought to factor in voting for Donald Trump.
"The president certainly feels strongly that voters across the country should carefully consider the agenda, priorities, and record of the president and vice-presidential candidates in this race. So that is worthy of scrutiny," he said. "And so again, I'm not going to second-guess the moderator in terms of which questions were asked. But it certainly would have been a relevant and fair question to have been asked because his actions as governor should weigh on the decision that voters make."
"I remember rather vividly when Governor Pence was on Mr. Stephanopoulos's show on one Sunday morning a year or two ago and trying to defend his decision to support this law," he said. "And he struggled mightily to do so, in part because it's hard to make a case that that's good for the state."
Pence in that interview insisted repeatedly. "This is not about discrimination." He claimed the law was about "empowering people to confront government overreach." Pence claimed it wasn't he and Republicans who were intolerant by letting businesses refuse service to LGBT people, it was actually LGBT people who were intolerant. "This avalanche of intolerance that's been poured on our state is just outrageous," he told Stephanopoulos.
Kaine was
asked on CNN whether he missed an opportunity to land a punch against Pence. Maybe the Indiana governor would have again fell apart while trying to make the case discrimination is justified against LGBT people and that socially conservative Christians are the real victims. First, Kaine noted that Quijano had not asked a question about LGBT rights. Then he said, "I would have loved to have had a 93-minute debate instead of a 90-minute debate." And lastly, he described his strategy of focusing criticism on Donald Trump as the top of the ticket.
The top of the ticket on the Kaine side -- Hillary Clinton -- made the case in a
guest op-ed published in the LGBT newspaper
Philadelphia Gay News that Pence's record reflects on Trump's judgment. Earnest seemed to suggest during the press briefing that President Obama agreed with that view.
"It certainly would be legitimate in the mind of the president," he said, "for somebody to consider that aspect of Governor Pence's record in determining whether or not to support the Republican presidential ticket this fall."
