DAVID AXELROD, CNN: I think that Tim Kaine was asked to play a role here that he isn't particularly comfortable with. Tim Kaine is a very positive, ebullient character and was asked to be an attack dog here and I think he wasn't entirely comfortable in that role and the strategy of interrupting I think was probably overdone.



Mike Pence, stylistically, as you point out, did very well. But I would point out, on the substance of some of these issues, I thought Pence was very muscular in the foreign policy debate, although he seemed to depart from Donald Trump in big ways including his approach to Putin.



There were other issues on guns, on abortion, on immigration in which Kaine did very well and at the end of the debate it was an extraordinary exchange I thought -- or really one of the better exchanges I've seen in debates in which each of them discussed the issue of abortion, both men of faith, but Tim Kaine articulated a view that is a widely-held view in this country and Pence stuck to his point of view, which will exhilarate his because, but may exacerbate a problem that Trump has particularly with women.