So far so good.
Kamala Harris has had a fine couple of weeks. From a standing start she has leapt from relative obscurity as vice president to become the Democratic Party’s candidate for the presidency in 2024. On the way to this achievement Ms. Harris has enthused what had been a dozing base of Democrats and has encountered no willing opponent in her party.
Seeking the nomination at raucous and well-attended rallies Ms. Harris has demonstrated her outstanding technique as a public speaker using a teleprompter and a standard stump speech. The hit lines of her speech to wild applause and cheering (you can hear them again and again this week at rallies in the battleground states) describe her experience as a San Francisco prosecutor going after defendants for doing all the things that Trump is alleged to have done, e.g. abusing women, cheating in business, fraud, and ending with “Hear me when I say I know Donald Trump’s type.”
But. And there are “buts.”
The campaign is a “committee” affair in that the headquarters are in Wilmington (Biden) and staffed by Biden holdovers supplemented by Harris staffers and advisers from her California, senate, and White House years. A giraffe is said to be an animal created by a committee.
It appears that the groups working for Harris, thrown together in mere days, are often in disagreement. How could it be otherwise?
On the plus side Harris has acquired the mammoth Biden field operation with hundreds of offices and thousands of employees in the states where the presidency will be decided ( and not in all parts of those states.)
Up to this point Ms. Harris has not spoken publicly sans teleprompter. No interviews. No off-the-cuff asides to press traveling on her plane. Her reticence is grounded in the fact that her unscripted moments as vice president often produced word salads that were unintelligible.
As part of her campaign that reticence has to end. She has to talk to people and to be seen and heard doing so. The traditional way of doing this in politics is the “listening tour” in which the candidate hangs out in living rooms and cafes interacting with folks (voters). There is no time for that in this 90 -day campaign.
Now that a September 10 “debate” between Trump and Harris on ABC has been agreed by both, Harris supporters suppose that her excellence as a courtroom lawyer will prove a knockout punch to Trump. I disagree.
It is almost impossible to have a successful interaction with Trump because he will say and do anything: false statements; personal attacks based on fictions; feigned shock and incredulity; improper movement (what in stage direction is called a “cross.”) Faced with Trump’s practiced act, Harris has to be distinguished and in control. She can’t say, “Get out of here you miserable cretin!” At most she can opine with the presidential version of “oy gevalt!” While the media will loudly declare Harris the “winner,” supplemented by a like opinion from a “focus group” (mall rats who hang out waiting to be selected because they have nothing better to do), what the viewers think is another matter.
Finally, Harris’s honeymoon days will come to an end. They always do.
On balance, Harris has a shot at the win. She will bring out people in the battleground states that would otherwise not vote.
And Harris has two big advantages: she’s not Trump and she’s new.