Hillary Clinton's vice presidential nominee, Virginia Senator Tim Kaine, is getting flack for constantly interrupting Indiana Governor Mike Pence during their debate on Tuesday.

Kaine, who was picked as Clinton's vice presidential candidate because of his likability and 'nice guy' image, interjected a total of at least 70 times, according to the political news and statistical analysis website fivethirtyeight.com.

Kaine started the hostilities in his opening statement, and signaled that he would attack GOP nominee Donald Trump.

It became the theme of the night.

Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine (left) and Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (right) held their only vice presidential debate at Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia, on Tuesday

The debate was moderated by Elaine Quijano of CBS News. Quijano admonished both candidates for interrupting each other, yet Kaine topped the night with 70 interruptions

Kaine then drove home insult after insult by interrupting Pence and the moderator, Elaine Quijano of CBS News.

In no time he was ticking off a list of rhetorical body-slams Trump has used in the 16 months of his presidential campaign.

At one point he labeled Trump a 'fool or a maniac', generating a rebuke from Pence: 'That's pretty low, even for you.'

The first snap poll - for CNN - suggested that Trump had benefited more from the debate than Clinton.

A focus group of Ohio voters for CBS News was more damning of Kaine with one man calling him 'a jerk'.

Frank Luntz, the veteran Republican pollster, held a focus group for CBS News which found that Pence was the clear winner

Luntz's focus group was turned off by Kaine's behavior, with one member saying that Hillary Clinton's VP pick 'came off as a jerk'

'Pence is coming off as the guy you want to have a beer with. Kaine is coming off as the person on Facebook you unfriend,' wrote one Twitter user

Pence's debate performance had people opining that he was an asset for the freewheeling Trump

Donald Trump's son Eric classified Kaine's performance as 'annoying,' while Clinton's team of surrogates were deployed to the spin room to push any style criticism back.

The Ohio focus group, which was run by longtime Republican pollster Frank Luntz, declared Pence the winner.

'Mike Pence is winning because Tim Kaine cannot debate like an adult without interruptions,' Luntz tweeted.

'Kaine is interrupting too much,' Luntz tweeted. 'The focus group wants the moderator to lay down the law and shut him up until it's his turn.'

Trump's campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, said Kaine's interruptions and his propensity to 'ignore' the moderator, Quijano, was 'sexist.'

'There he was, interrupting a female moderator,' Conway told Fox News. 'We lost track of the times. We just stopped writing it down.'

Trump's campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, accused Kaine of 'sexism' for 'ignoring and interrupting' Quijano

Conway said that Trump was accused of sexism when he interrupted Clinton during their debate last month, but there was a double standard when it came to Kaine.

'It's the Clinton campaign who loves to throw around words like "sexism" and "unhinged",' she said.

'They've got to be regretting those words on a night like tonight, when Tim Kaine looked like both.'

'Is it sexist when Kaine interrupts Pence constantly or just what debaters do to win debates?' New York Times reporter Nick Confessore asked Conway in a tweet.

Conway replied by referencing Kaine and Clinton's husband, former President Bill Clinton, who criticized ObamaCare during a campaign stop on Monday.

'Actually, it's just unsuccessful. Hillary must be none too pleased her husband and her running mate are stepping all over her message,' Conway tweeted.

Conway also blasted Kaine and Bill Clinton, who on Monday made headlines by criticizing ObamaCare, for undermining Hillary Clinton's candidacy

During the debate, Quijano admonished both vice presidential nominees for repeatedly interrupting each other.

'Gentlemen, the people at home can not understand either one of you when you speak over each other,' said Quijano, a digital reporter with CBS News.

Face the Nation moderator John Dickerson said that the debate was a 'bickerfest.'

'Tim Kaine, from the word go, was interrupting and kept interrupting all night,' Dickerson said.

'He seemed insistent on getting across the bad news about Donald Trump.'

'He repeatedly tried to get Mike Pence to defend Donald Trump, and often Gov. Pence resisted that temptation,' Dickerson said.