The Harris Campaign in Three Acts
Consider that politicians are actors performing to obtain votes from their audience. Kamala Harris has inadvertently presented her campaign in three acts:
Act I: Honeymoon
Act II: Run Out the Clock
Act III: Panic Ensues
Along the way she made some unforced errors which have proved informative about her candidacy.
Act I, The Honeymoon
After her selection, Harris began cutting into the lead Trump enjoyed against Biden. Democrats were overjoyed with the new candidate. She was young, energetic, and could lead the party into the future. She had been Attorney General of California, a federal senator, vice-president, and now candidate for president. Despite her credentials, the pretense developed that she was a blank slate. Blank seemed to agree with her.
Her strategists understood the country was in no mood to elect an archetypical San Francisco liberal. She had to shed her anti-fracking, open border, Medicare for all policies to attract moderate voters. When a reporter asked a question, she smiled politely, waved and removed herself from the questioner as quickly as possible.
During the honeymoon, she made an unforced error. To placate her base, she refused to attend a joint session of Congress in which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the nation. The Democrats’ liberal base had joined Hamas in antisemitic protests. Harris deserted her post to appease the protestors and her radical base. This was a bad decision. She could have had a photo-op beside the Speaker of the House on the Congressional dais with Netanyahu in the foreground. She passed on an opportunity to appear as a stateswoman.
The honeymoon continued as an adoring press and several Democrat politicians desiring the running-mate position pursued Harris. The suitors courted Ms. Harris until she selected Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. Weird was Walz’s operative word, but he contended Trump and his running mate J. D. Vance were the weird ones. Harris and the media had great fun laughing at “weird” Republicans. The girl was having fun. She was on a honeymoon after all.
Voters soon wondered at Walz’s wild-eyed weirdness. The common thread between Harris and Walz was their commitment to advance liberal movements. Harris could have selected Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro. He was a more moderate, clear-eyed choice who is the popular governor of the largest swing state. A win in Pennsylvania would likely assure a Harris victory. She decided that advancing liberal movements was more important than winning an election. Choosing Walz was a lapse in judgment.
The Democratic National Convention was a well-orchestrated consummation of Harris’s candidacy. She possessed the progressive bona fides the elite faction demanded and the good sense to pretend she had moderated her views. She was acceptable to everyone in the hall. They cheered joyously for her candidacy. Sadly, the honeymoon was over. The campaign began in earnest on Labor Day.
Act II, Run Out the Clock
As September started Harris had a lead in the polls, money in the bank, and momentum on her side. The Harris campaign decided to repeat the Biden basement strategy. If she read a prepared speech from a teleprompter while smiling joyously, she would win. Her campaign paraphrased the three wise monkeys—see nothing relevant, do nothing relevant, say nothing relevant.
Harris was also counting on Trump to make errors. Trump had a very different style and strategy. The removal of Biden put him a little off his game. His strategy had focused on the incompetence of Biden juxtaposed with the successful policies he pursued as president. The people viewed Harris differently than Biden. She didn’t exhibit symptoms of dementia.
Trump’s task was to connect Harris with the Biden administration. The open border clearly demonstrated this connection. She was the Border Czar. As Attorney General of California, Harris didn’t classify illegal immigration as a crime. Trump took shots at Harris’s political record and explained why she was unfit for the office she sought. Many people didn’t feel comfortable voting for a candidate that smiled sweetly and said nothing. Instead of making errors, Trump was making points.
In a debate on September 10th, Trump pushed Harris on her record while she danced around it. Harris pushed back on abortion and insisted he was a threat to democracy. Trump took some of the bait and appeared angry at times. The debate had no clear winner.
As September ended, Harris’s strategy to run out the clock was failing. The RealClearPolitics average of national polls showed that Trump had closed the gap and was gaining momentum. He was doing even better in the swing states.
Act III, Panic Ensues
To combat her drop in the polls, Harris began a series of interviews but continued to say nothing relevant. She maintained her moderate views but was unconvincing. Her pat answer about the economy was, “I grew up in amiddle-class family”. Many Americans grow up in middle-class families. This doesn’t qualify them to be economic experts or president. Her biggest mistake occurred on the progressive coffee klatch, The View. When asked what she would do differently than President Biden she could think of nothing. This completed Trump’s task of connecting Harris with the poor performance of Biden.
Kamala’s third unforced error was her refusal to attend the Al Smith Dinner on October 17th. Al Smith was a four-term Democrat Governor of New York and the party’s candidate for president in 1928. He was also a Catholic. His memory is honored by the Archdiocese of New York with a fundraising dinner during every presidential campaign. Harris snubbed Catholic charities and the memory of a famous Democrat. A few days before the dinner, Gretchen Whitmer mimicked giving Holy Communion by feeding a kneeling woman a Dorito. Snubbing the Al Smith Dinner was a bad decision. Whitmer’s sacrilegious musing was unclever.
The Obamas were called on to realign black male voters since polling indicated many of these voters were considering voting for Trump. Barack told black men they were tempted by Trump because they are misogynists. Michelle told similar audiences that voting for Trump put females in grave danger. The Obamas might consider that people of all races are free to think for themselves and vote accordingly.
Harris recently asked Americans to visualize Trump wearing a brown shirt while sporting a tooth-brush mustache and goose-stepping wildly around Mar-a-Lago. Democrats have portrayed Trump as Hitler, a Russian spy, and criminal mastermind. They are the child that cries wolf. Presenting disturbing images of Donald Trump has become a Democrat parlor game. Attempting to change people’s minds with wild accusations about Trump signals ensuing panic.
The outcome of the election is uncertain. Trump currently has a lead in the national polls and the swing states. Democrats will likely lose Senate seats in West Virginia and Montana. Seats are in play in at least four other states. Republicans are up a point in generic congressional vote polling. Of course, on election day all the polls can be thrown out the window. Hang onto your hat, the evening of November 5th should be interesting.
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