Damned If You Do

Morning Dispatch

Left: Regular Tic-Tacs; Right: Donald-sized Tic-Tacs

Kamala Harris is Joe Biden’s vice president so, by default, we have a pretty good idea about her policy positions are because for the last three and a half years she has been working on policy. In some cases, as with abortion rights, she’s been championing the Biden/Harris administration’s policies.

Are rallies the best venues during which to explicate policy nuance? No. Rallies are about broad strokes, hitting the highlights, generating enthusiasm and, yes, vibes.

But just because reporters are displeased that Harris isn’t (yet) agreeing to do those press conferences and or sit for the one-on-one interviews they’re clamoring for, doesn’t mean she doesn’t stand for anything. And it doesn’t mean her policy positions are a complete mystery or that she’s hiding them from the public in some nefarious plot to pull a fast one after she gets into the Oval Office.

And, yet, we see these headlines:

• “Harris Is Set to Lay Out an Economic Message Light on Detail” (The New York Times)

• “Harris is trying to run a no-substance campaign. Does she believe in anything?” (The Hill)

• “Does Harris need a serious policy agenda? Only if she wants to win.” (The Washington Post: Opinion)

First of all, I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that the Harris/Walz campaign has been one of the most—if not the most—effective campaigns in my lifetime. Considering Vice President Harris has been at this for barely three weeks, her success is nothing short of astonishing. Why she would change tactics to assuage the hurt feelings of the corporate media—which treated Pres. Biden so shabbily, which demanded the Democrats choose anybody other than Kamala Harris to replace Joe Biden, and which continues to bend over backwards to help Donald Trump, is beyond me.

As Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo put it

You’ll remember that when Ezra Klein and others got together the calls for a Thunderdome convention Klein referred delicately and painedly to “the Kamala Harris problem,” a problem so obvious that it scarcely required explanation: how to usher her out of the way for others from the vaunted Democratic bench. 

It was such a deep conventional wisdom that it hardly required explanation. Everyone in that world knew what he meant. That certainly figures into this, and in both directions. It is not only that there is this great appetite to find out just what it is Harris must be doing wrong. That backstory must have left Harris just utterly uninterested in what these folks have to say. They treated her as something between a punchline and a nonentity and now she’s the odds-on favorite, if only by a small margin, to the next President. Why should she care?

Second, as I said, we have a very good idea where Vice President Harris stands on many of the most salient issues—if not in detail, at least in substance. When it comes to abortion rights, the right to privacy, gun safety, climate change, and defending democracy, it is no secret which side she’s on.

Third, to demand specificity and transparency while continuing to give Donald Trump a pass is a non-starter. This just adds to the list of reasons Harris should feel no compunction about ignoring demands from the press that she stop everything to give them the time of day.

At an event in North Carolina, which the media generously referred to as an “economy focused” speech, Donald said the following about the economy:

• “For nearly four years, Kamala has cackled as the American economy has burned.”

• “Her laugh is career-threatening, That’s a laugh of a person with some big problems.”

• “They say [the economy is] the most important subject. I think crime is right there. I think the border is right there. We have a lot of important subjects.

• In an effort to bring prices down, he promised to end “costly, job-killing” regulations but did not say which ones.

• He would “slash energy and electricity prices by half” but then must have realized he’d gone too far because he immediately backtracked: “If it doesn’t work out, you’ll say, ‘Oh well, I voted for him. I still got it down a lot.’” 

Vice President Harris will be giving remarks in Raleigh, NC on Friday to outline her economic agenda. I have no doubt it will be coherent, detailed, and reality-based.

It will be fascinating to see how the press covers it. In the meantime, any elements of the corporate media complaining about Kamala Harris’ availability and willingness to outline the nuts-and-bolts of her administration’s agenda while continuing to give Donald a pass can’t be taken seriously.