The first presidential debate of 2024 exposed just why the Democrats had hidden Joe Biden in his basement for the entire 2020 campaign. That Biden’s brain was on a permanent rinse cycle was so brutally laid bare on national television that even the mainstream media couldn’t lie about it. Oh, they tried, at first, claiming Biden was recovering from a cold. But we all saw what we saw.
So, while the Democrats tried hiding their parachuted replacement, Kamala Harris, from any and all scrutiny, Americans were on to them, this time. So this week at last, grudgingly, the DNC machine wheeled out their cackling, babbling captain’s pick for the softest of media appearances.
And it’s still gone south.
If Kamala Harris wins the presidency in November she’ll be the least scrutinised presidential candidate in US history, by far. In the 78 days she’s been the Democratic candidate – and according to political betting markets the most likely next president of the US – she’s not done a single press conference, which is staggering.
By contrast, Donald Trump has done six, long-form, one-on-one media interviews, at times with the most hostile media imaginable. Even Joe Biden has done a press conference – which was just as much a disaster for Harris as anything else.
Because Harris is, however implausibly, touting herself as the ‘change’ candidate. As if she hasn’t been squatting in the White House for the past four years, as a member of the party that has held power for four of the past 17 years. Yet, Biden asserts:
His vice president was a “major player in everything we’ve done”.
“We’re singing from the same song sheet. We, she helped pass all the laws that are being employed,“ he told reporters at the same time as the Harris campaign has been seeking to distance itself from Biden’s record.
Harris, when asked what she would do different from Biden, answered, ‘Nothing comes to mind’.
Change!
For weeks after she became the candidate in July, Harris declined any interviews with media, only in recent weeks dribbling out a series of about half a dozen friendly exchanges with journalists who have been vocal in their support for her, such as Oprah (who spoke at the Democratic Party convention) and Stephanie Rhule at MSNBC, a network one of whose top producers recently admitted was doing “all they can” to help Harris get elected.
They’ve got an uphill run.
Is the Harris team pursing a deliberate ‘small target’ strategy, or is it instead burdened by the small interlocutory talent of its leader? Despite Harris’s impressive career pedigree, Attorney-General of California and before that a senior public prosecutor, it’s looking to be more like the latter.
The Vice-President has repeatedly reverted to hackneyed stories about her allegedly “middle class background” when asked specific questions in the handful of media interviews she has done so far.
“I grew up in a neighbourhood of folks who were very proud of their lawn,” she told journalist Brian Taff, when asked to give specific policies she would enact to reduce prices, without remotely answering the question, in an interview last month.
The ‘girl power’ candidate hasn’t been able to do a long-form interview without her old white-guy running mate holding her hand. Their second outing, a pre-recorded interview aired on 60 Minutes this week, was even more excruciating than the last.
Her 60 Minutes interview […] included a painful moment where the vice president was unable to explain why she hadn’t pushed to crack down on the unprecedented surge in immigration across the southern border earlier, an issue which has fuelled Donald Trump’s political comeback.
“Arrivals quadrupled … Was it a mistake to loosen the immigration policies as much as you did?” [Bill Whitaker] asked, multiple times, without any satisfactory answer. “It’s a longstanding problem. And solutions are at hand,” she said in various permutations, without explaining who [sic] those solutions weren’t enacted in 2021.
Even worse, Harris claimed that arrivals had recently halved, leaving even the most mathematically challenged viewer to quickly work out that that meant that arrivals were still double what they were before Harris became ‘border czar’.
Then there are the now-infamous Harris ‘word salads’.
Asked why she had changed her position on so many issues over the years, Harris said she was travelling the country to build consensus. “We are a diverse people.”
Well, okay… and…? voters are entitled to wonder.
It’s too soon to [sic] any polling on whether her busiest week with media since coming the de facto leader of the Democratic Party in July has been helpful, although it’s interesting to note for the first time in a month Trump became the favourite to win in November according to the eight political betting markets tracked by RealClear Politics, the favourite flipping literally over the last few days.
Every time Harris opens her mouth, the Trump campaign pop the champagne corks.
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