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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.
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SubscribeGreetings 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?
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.
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.