Main Edition
US
FR
September 20, 2024 - 7:30pm
Republicans hope the Harris-Walz campaign will irritate voters by skirting the press. From a moral standpoint, the strategy is awful, particularly as part of a campaign premised on saving democratic norms. From a political standpoint, however, it’ll probably work just fine.
“The Harris-Walz ticket is on pace to do fewer interviews and press conferences than any major party’s presidential pairing in modern U.S. history,” Axios reported on Thursday, describing the campaign’s strategy as “hide from the press”.
According to Axios, during the 59 days since Kamala Harris became the Democratic presidential candidate, Donald Trump and J.D. Vance have participated in more than 70 interviews and press conferences with TV and print reporters. Harris and Walz, meanwhile, have taken part in seven. The report summed up Democrats’ strategy bluntly: “Some of Harris’s worst moments as vice president have come during interviews when she made flip or unclear comments about key policies. Her campaign is trying to avoid more moments like that.”
As well they should. Harris is famously so weak a candidate outside deep-blue California that even with significant media hype, she dropped out of the 2020 primary race before, well, 2020. Her performance as Vice President was a laughing stock in D.C. until Joe Biden dropped out of the election thanks in no small part to her hilarious struggles with media interviews and public speaking.
The cost-benefit analysis for Democrats is clearly on the side of minimising exposure. Back in August, Senior Trump campaign official Corey Lewandowski criticised Harris by arguing that she “hides in the basement” while Trump campaigns in swing states. This line of attack is also totally reasonable from the GOP. Some voters will absolutely be turned off if they hear Harris is intentionally ducking media interviews. The key word, though, is “if”.
Axios is a Beltway publication. X is frequented by only a small percentage of the electorate. People both aware of the problem and persuaded by it in this hyper-polarised climate absolutely exist, but they’re not legion. And there are a whole lot more people who would see clips of Harris inevitably fumbling interview after interview if her campaign adopted a more traditional press strategy. She went viral constantly before taking over from Biden, virtually becoming a fixture of the memesphere. And not in a good way.
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
SubscribeAs the proverb goes, the fat lady hasn’t even warmed up yet, much less began to sing. Kamala (that’s how she addresses herself in the laughable donation emails she floods my inbox with) is a house of cards. Propped up by some of the cringiest and most corrupt politicians and media hacks in our lifetimes. She make GW Bush sound eloquent, She makes Biden look clever. Give her and that cheerful smiley psycho VP enough rope…
Watch this if you have not already seen it. It shows exactly how out of touch and vacuous she is, whilst also relying on her “staff” to cover up her blunders.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZNd2AFuobw
As a Brit I have no say, but for the safety of the world, even though I am no fan of Trump, the answer to who would I want bashing the heads together of errant world leaders is definitely not this deranged harpie.
Harris personifies the uniparty candidate. It’s not about supporting individual policies of the party (which are subject to change any time), it’s about supporting what the party says at any given point. She promises to follow the party line as needed, and that is about enough. Public discussion on individual policy decisions aren’t needed for “our democracy” anyway since “the science” already tells us what we need to do.
The world is such a mess. People seem more emotionally connected to their party leaders, yet they have no idea what policies they support.
Jeez, they’re not just not investigating, they’re actively helping hide her from public scrutiny. This election should be as much about the corrupt and deeply dishonest press as it is about the candidates themselves. In the long run, this raging collapse of journalism poses more of an existential threat to democracy than Harris or Trump ever will.
Maybe Donald Trump should do the same! Starmer did the same over here. He said very little and let the Tories fall on their sword. I feel very sorry for the Americans. What a pathetic choice they have.
Trump is incapable of adopting a strategy like that.
Kamala is also not going to convince any Trump voters. And Democrat messages are better conveyed via surrogates and media collaborators who control the information channel to Democrat voters. So why should Kamala do anything? Sit back and pick off Trumpish gaffes.
But I also think the Trump side is trapped into rightwing messaging – economy, immigration, crime, foreign conflict. There is very little reaching out into Democrat issues – education, health, community, and a lack of female voices on the Trump side. To pick up votes he would need to breakthrough with suburban moms and low-level public administrators, and he can’t reach them.
I also think this time around that Trump’s sounds too bitter – blame, blame, blame. In 2016 he’d aped JFK and Reagan more with sounds around opportunity, growth, improvement and from that ‘change’ – that America could do better than gravy-train politics. That mood is missing so Trump is always stuck talking to the same audience.
The 45-45 pro-, anti-Trump split has barely budged in 8 years. It’s not clear why that would change with the last weeks of campaigning, so why does Kamala need to do anything?
Journalists aren’t doing the job of holding Harris to account because that’s not what journalists do any more. They think it’s their job to decide the outcomes of elections because they know what’s best for democracy. Kamala Harris was not selected for the candidacy with any input from voters, but was chosen by media elites to be the Savior of Our Democracy. Joe Biden had been “as sharp as a tack” and “running circles around us on policy, impossible to keep up with” behind closed doors, until the day after the debate, and then that never happened and no one ever said that. Kamala was instantly the joyful, ultra-competent genius who was simultaneously an effective vice-president in the current administration and the antidote to the current Trump regime that was ruining the economy and causing immigration problems.
Harris’s only danger from the media elites would come if she’s too ostentatiously contemptuous of them. She has to at least let them pretend that they still do journalism. If she hurts their feelings by acting like she’s the one running the show instead of them, they could lose their nerve and turn on her. The last candidate they lost patience with was super easy to replace, so why should she be any less disposable?
Kamala is Caligula’s Incitatus.
Let the Americans vote for her. Then your Starmer will be an angel, a political genius, a savior of the nation.
Yes, even her ‘chat’ with the super-sympathetic Oprah exposed the utter vacuousness of this woman. But maybe that’s what people want? The details of policy are just so boring aren’t they? Kamala is so loving and so inclusive… let’s vote her in.
At present Biden seems to be in charge.
Jill Biden.
I didn’t think that she needed to say anything. The MSM say it all for her.
Those of us who are not American but live in one of the s0-called western ‘democracies’ have a very real interest in the outcome of the USA general election. Specifically, if Harris becomes President the world will become a huge mess, with the last residues of democracy at risk of permanent erasure. Under her ‘leadership’ the USA will set the standard for neo-authoritarian state governance based on naked untruths (e.g. men = women) and cynical DEI control. Our grandchildren will be taught to hate us for our backgrounds, the values that shaped our cultures and our history that created our identities.
If Kamala Harris wins on 5th November it will be the equivalent of Obama’s fourth term as all of the government appointees will need his approval. Trump has brought in to the Republican Party a fair number of voters would would in the past never have considered voting for them but at the same time put off many former Republicans due to his abrasive and erratic personality coupled with his continued obsession that the 2020 election was somehow stolen.
Octavius Obama….
Greetings from the USA. I believe the strategy is working. Each candidate has a locked in base of support at 45%, at least. Few if any of these minds will change. Kamala Harris performed well and Donald Trump blew the one debate they had. Kamala’s supporters are engaged and Democrats now have at least the same enthusiasm as Republicans to vote.
Our stock markets are hitting all time highs, gasoline / petrol prices are declining and while the job market is weakening, we are not seeing large spikes in unemployment. Illegal immigration? Yes, its a problem, but its almost like a problem like the weather is a problem – I don’t read about cries for Kamal Harris to have a plan to deal with it. And we are not sure what, if anything she was supposed to do about illegal migration other than to look at the root causes of the issue.
Until President Biden dropped out of the race, about 24% of the electorate preferred “neither of the above.” Now Kamala Harris fits that role and those voters are moving to her. If you like things as they are, then vote for Harris. If you miss 2017-2019, vote for Trump.
Meanwhile, who is in charge (in fact) at the White House these days?
The amount of wilful blindness regarding Harris is truly staggering. It takes an absolute suspension of critical thought to support the candidacy of someone who hides from the media (and thus the public) for fear of showing herself up as the incoherent, babbling lightweight she is.
But most people, I live in uk, take their messages from MSM and mostly lefty social media like Facebook.
Because MSM “journalists” are card carrying members of woke left, they are not going to undermine the narrative by trying to question Harris ability and track record.
No idea how to solve this problem in USA.
In uk, clear first step would be defunding of bbc.
Reality is that 90% of woke youngsters bbc is appealing to are not paying for it.
But “old gammon” does while being abused in the process.
Conservatives (so called) had 9 years to disband bbc, but they didn’t.
Total disgrace.
Yes, whereas supporting a felon sand a sex pest makes perfect sense.
Aside from having Harris speak as little as possible, another part of the strategy seems to be banking on her photogenic appearance. The camera does truly love her, as it does AOC, and this advantage, superficial as it is, will score well with the present generation of US voters.
Yes, it’s come to this…
It’s always been that way, since the advent of television
Many women voted for JFK primarily because he was so good looking, especially compared to Nixon.
Indeed, Nixon is said to have lost to Kennedy in 1960 because his 4 o’clock shadow made him appear to be less appealing.
Jill Biden is now doing cabinet meetings. Why is she not doing press conferences?
And that guy you sometimes see with Jill. I think his name is Joe. Why is he hiding from the press? If he is unfit to do press conferences, isn’t there somebody designated in the constitution who can stand in for him?
Only because the MSM is so committed to seeing her win the election.
Mostly team Kamala is behaving as if they know the counting of ballots is under her team’s control. Look at how they are howling about the completely reasonable ruling that ballots should actually be counted by hand in Georgia.
It does look as though Kamala could be re-elected to the White House.
I suspect you’re right and the main culprits are the legacy media. Our only hope now is that enough swing voters see through this charade. I’m not optimistic.
We have to acknowledge too that Biden’s strategy in 2020 was to hide from the media, hence Bunker Joe, and let Trump talk himself into a hole. That strategy worked fine but it led to one of the most inept presidencies in history.
And the Dems don’t care, as long as they control the executive levers of power.
Re-elected: the 4th Obama administration.