Different Candidate, Same Plan

As virtually every political commentator has already pointed out, it’s been a great month for Kamala Harris. Despite an off-the-cuff flub here and there, the vice president has run a smart and disciplined presidential campaign that has not only wiped away Donald Trump’s small lead in the polls but given her a growing edge.

More good news for Harris is probably coming. Assuming anti-Israel protestors don’t turn the Democratic National Convention, which starts today, into a violent free-for-all (which happened the last time the party met in Chicago way back in 1968), the four-day jamboree will likely give the vice president yet another public opinion boost.

Up until now, the Harris campaign strategy has been nothing short of brilliant. Once or twice a day, the candidate appears, like Venus rising from the sea, then smiles and imparts a few choice (scripted) remarks to an adoring crowd, before descending once again beneath the waves.

But like any god, she must be worshipped from a distance. One month into the Harris ascendency, no media interviews, press conferences or town hall meetings with the candidate have occurred or even been scheduled. Politically, Harris is more of an avatar than a person.

Meanwhile, the candidate says very little about what she would do if elected. She’s put forth few major policy proposals, unless you count reversing herself on some of the less popular ideas she floated the last time she was running for president in 2020, from bans on fracking to eliminating private health insurance. Even her two big policy rollouts are, so far, largely comprised of completely idiotic ideas (price controls) or warmed up progressive policy leftovers (an expanded child tax credit.)

Instead, in a series of one-liners, she largely focuses on the big bad orange man and all the horrible things he will do if elected. Most notably, she has taken to reminding audiences at her rallies of how, as a prosecutor, she put away all kinds of criminals, before adding (to huge applause), “So hear me when I say, I know Donald Trump’s type.”

If all this sounds vaguely familiar, it should. The Harris campaign’s strategy largely mirrors that of Biden’s before Democratic Party oligarchs forced him out—starting with keeping the candidate at arm’s length from the public (because, as with her boss, they might not like what they see), largely focusing on Trump’s character flaws and, finally, depending on the news media not to do its job.  

So far, all is going according to plan. Harris has transformed Biden’s moribund Democratic Party into an energized, enthusiastic machine, which explains much if not most of her rise in the polls. Meanwhile, a fawning press covers the vice president as if it’s taking orders from her campaign manager—seemingly satisfied with running stories about how much “joy” the Harris campaign is exuding, in lieu of asking her any real questions, starting with why she isn’t willing to answer any real questions.

But while the media would have us believe that Harris will soon have the race for the White House all sewn up, there are reasons to think this election still may end up being a jump ball. To begin with, in spite of the breathless coverage of her rise in the polls, nearly one month in, this race is still very much up for grabs: According to Real Clear Politics polling averages, Harris leads Trump by only one point in head-to-head matchups and has pulled only even or slightly ahead in the swing states.

Also, not to state the obvious, but a campaign strategy that centers on keeping the candidate from speaking extemporaneously, ever, is hiding a fundamental, maybe even fatal weakness. In Biden’s case, his team (which included Harris) was covering up the fact that he was not physically or mentally up to the job. Given the vice president’s reputation for quickly turning her comments into gibberish when she’s speaking without a teleprompter, her handlers are clearly hoping that they can avoid any word salads until Election Day.

But in a year when politics is dominating nearly every news cycle, it will become increasingly hard for Harris to hide behind her speechwriters. Even among the clowns who still call themselves political journalists, eventually some (due possibly to muscle memory) will clamor for her to do interviews and to mix it up with voters, a call that will be amplified by social media. At some point, if she keeps up this reticence it’s likely to become a much bigger story, possibly one that could become a major problem for her.

Meanwhile, the strategy of counting on your opponent to make your case for you can be fraught with risk, even when that opponent is as flawed a candidate as Trump. Right now, Trump is acting like a scared and angry buffoon, which is certainly helping Harris. But while the former president has often had a hard time getting out of his own way (which, after all, is why the Democrats have always been so eager to make every election about him), he’s also sometimes shown a willingness to act in his own political interests, as he did in the months leading up to the GOP convention. So, there’s a decent chance that he’ll eventually start listening to his excellent campaign team and change tack.

And if Trump does change tack, he will have many opportunities to score points. In spite of her rise in the polls, Harris is a target-rich environment: She’s tied to an extremely unpopular administration as well as a set of extremely unpopular policies. What’s more, in spite of her recent flip-flops on issues, it won’t be hard for Trump to paint Harris as an unreconstructed San Francisco leftist, especially if she’s not doing the interviews and meet and greets needed to explain exactly why she’s recently changed her mind about so many things. A more disciplined Trump who stops talking about the 2020 election and his opponent’s mixed-race background, and starts talking about Harris’s prior flirtations with positions ranging from defunding the police to opening the border and the problems of the Biden-Harris years, is likely to start gaining traction, especially as the glow from Harris’s shiny new candidacy inevitably begins to dim.

Finally, there are the ever-present winds of change. Given the overboiling pot that is American politics and the surfeit of media (especially social media) coverage, we should assume that things won’t stay the same. To wit, a month ago, having survived an assassin’s bullet and hosted a largely successful nominating convention, Trump looked to be cruising to victory, while today he appears to be flailing and sinking.

So in a month’s time, the dynamic of the race could very well change again. And if it does, it may well be because Trump will have finally begun shining a harsher spotlight on Harris.