Harris needs to sound more like Obama on Trump

Quinn Glabick/Reuters

Three weeks from today there will be 72 hours left before the American people make a decision that will have profound consequences for America’s future.

The Harris campaign seems adrift and satisfied with a level of engagement with Trump that seeks to make an issue out of his trampling of dead norms, such as releasing medical records. It is a curious strategy given that the case against Trump would seem to be much more vivid when focusing on his promises, declarations, threats, and insanity versus his omissions that have been long ago baked into his reputation. Focusing on small issues at the expense of existential ones will not end well.

The dynamic between the Biden White House and Harris campaign is not good, according to Alex Thompson of Axios. This is outrageous, and should stop immediately. The only thing that matters is winning, and anything that stands as an impediment to that goal isn’t just unacceptable, but morally so. There is no room for pettiness at this late hour with so much at stake.

Here is how

Andrew Sullivan

observed the campaign:

And yet, she’s obviously struggling to close the sale. At this point in 2020, Joe Biden, with far fewer resources than Harris, was 10 points ahead of Trump, and finished around 8.4 points ahead in the polling. Biden won the actual election by 4.5 percent, almost half the margin the polls predicted. At this point in 2016, Hillary Clinton was 6 points ahead, finished 3.6 points ahead in the polls, and ended up 2.1 percent ahead in the popular vote.

Run the numbers on Harris and you can begin to realize why smart Democrats are browning their whites. Today, Harris has a lead of just 2.6 percent nationally — much weaker than Clinton and Biden at this point. It’s the same in the swing states. Cillizza notes that in Pennsylvania at this point, Biden was +7 and Harris is barely +1; in Michigan, Biden was + 8, and Harris is tied. If the polls underestimated Trump's national support by 2.5 points in 2016 and by 4 points in 2020, and the skew continues, then we could well be looking at the first victory in the popular vote that Trump has ever won. More to the point, nothing is really shifting. If anything, there’s a slight drift back toward Trump right now.

The big infomercial push was obviously a response to this. So I dutifully sat down and listened to or watched Harris’ media appearances, to see if she had found a way to close the deal with undecideds. I wanted to hear her answer two baseline questions that are still unresolved in my own mind. Why do you want to be president? And what change would you bring to the White House and the country?

These are not hard questions. They’re the most fundamental to a presidential campaign, and having listened to her closely in these interviews, I still don’t know. She has quietly dropped many previous positions on the border, fracking, Medicare. And, yes, she has offered some new policies. It’s unfair to say she hasn’t by this point. But giveaways to first-time homeowners and entrepreneurs, and help with aging parents and money to new parents, have not exactly seized the public’s attention. She flounders when asked how she’d pay for them, and over all, they remind me of Churchill’s remark: “Take away this pudding! It has no theme.” “I was born in a middle-class family” doesn’t cut it.

Here is what he wrote about Tim Walz:

A presidential campaign where you rarely face the press, never deal with a hostile interview, and never hold a presser is a campaign defined by fear. You can smell it from miles away. The same explains the one decision she says she made alone: picking Tim Walz over Josh Shapiro. Walz didn’t make her feel insecure. Shapiro did. So she went with Tim. Not a great sign for a future president.

The crucial hours have arrived for the Harris campaign, and they have not yet closed the deal.

The closing message must be about Donald Trump and the threat that he poses to the American republic, liberty and world peace. He is a fascist and a profound danger. The simple truth is that America’s corporate media is afraid to call Trump what he plainly he is. Kamala Harris must do it. This is the test at hand. She will either pass it or fail it. The American people and their children will pay a high price if she falls short.

Before Kamala Harris will get a chance to confront danger abroad she will have to prove she is ready to face the threat at hand. This requires more than the most decisive debate performance in modern political history. She must confront Trump for what he is.

This election is on a razor’s edge, and Kamala Harris must climb higher. She must make clear why she wants to be president, and what her vision for America is after Trump.

Today, Harris is lagging where President Biden was in the decisive states. She must seize the election with a fierce argument that makes clear the stakes. Everything is on the line. This is a huge moment.

What would a president say?

Harris needs to sound a lot more like Obama in the closing days:

The country deserves to hear the truth.

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