For more than a month, Kamala Harris has been a lost cause for Democrats, riding the wave of the most positive press coverage a presidential candidate has gotten in two decades and using her own skills to do so. It turned the election race into an extremely close one.
But will she have a second act?
There isn’t much new in Kamala 2.0, which is under constant attack by Donald Trump and the Republican Party. She runs a campaign to play it safe, similar to how a basketball team sits on the lead and runs out the clock.
However, Harris does not maintain a lead in the three Midwestern “blue wall” states she needs to win, and if she loses even one of them, she could hand over the presidency to Trump again.
Vance-Waltz vice presidential debate ends in ‘tie’: Democratic Rep. Debbie Dingell
Despite the focus on Pennsylvania, Harris has a 0.7 percentage point lead in Michigan, a statistic based on Real Clear Politics’ averages that shows they are tied.
On Sunday’s “Media Buzz,” Democratic Rep. Debbie Dingell told me her state could go either way.
“The vice president has a problem with union members,” Dingell said. “Many of the men, and frankly young African-American men, told me that I was in a group with them last week and said, ‘You know, Donald Trump is talking to us. Democrats are taking us for granted.’
The congressman recalled that in 2016, when he predicted Trump would win Michigan, along with Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, “everybody got mad at me.”
(Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
The big problem for Harris is that she doesn’t seem to know how to make news. With less than 30 days left and many voters rightfully believing they don’t know her or don’t fully understand her policies to replace Joe Biden, the vice president is on the stump. Parts of speeches are spliced together and the same anecdotes are virtually reused. Verbatim.
The presidential candidates have to come up with some new lines, some new proposals, something that breaks into the news cycle that is currently dominated by President Trump.
So, what’s on the agenda this week? Kamala will be sitting down with Howard Stern (the complete opposite of his old friend Donald). “The View,” where women disparage Trump, and Stephen Colbert, who hosted fundraisers for Joe Biden in 2020 and this year.
Just in case you’re wondering, she also talks to Alex Cooper of the sex podcast Call Your Daddy.
Why Vance easily beat Waltz in debate and softened his image in the process
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that these sessions are designed to be friendly. It’s no different than the conversation I had with MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhl. Rhule continued to agree with Harris and had just declared Trump a danger to democracy.
To be fair, Harris was also present for the “60 Minutes” interview that Trump declined.
In a divided media world, there’s nothing wrong with a candidate showing a soft side to unconventional media. We’ve come a long way since critics derided candidate Bill Clinton’s response to the “boxers or briefs” question on MTV as unpresidential.
On “Call Your Daddy,” Sarah Huckabee Sanders said that her children keep her humble and that the vice president has no one to humble her. , Harris actually answered quite thoughtfully.
(Rebecca Droke/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Instead of attacking the governor of Arkansas, which would generate cheap headlines, she said that families come in many forms, bound by blood and love, that she is deeply involved with her stepchildren, and that now she I reflected on the fact that it is no longer the 1950s. They also discussed tampons.
Still, the party is getting tense. Politico says, “Democratic operatives, including some of Kamala Harris’ own staff, are increasingly concerned about her relatively light campaign schedule, which makes her more likely to be involved in events than Donald Trump.” “They hold few meetings and almost completely avoid unscripted interactions with voters and the media.” ”
Since the tournament, Veep has spent more than a third of its days in meetings and briefings, with no public events held.
More than half of states are offering early voting, which Politico describes as a “low-risk, risk-averse approach to the race.”
Georgia Republican Party Chairman shares Trump’s two-pronged campaign strategy to win back the Peach State
Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan doesn’t enthusiastically want Trump to win, but she’s still pretty harsh in her criticism of Harris.
“She has not specified her political intentions: what she stands for, what she will not stand for, what she will establish, what she will not allow to happen.
What is her essential mission? Is it “repair” of the nation, “stabilization” of an unstable country, or “a fresh start”?
“She hasn’t conveyed a sense of intellectual understanding so far. Her campaigns have put too many chips in the air, atmosphere, and photo ideas.”
And vibes can only take you so far.
But the vice president had certain duties, and he spent two days visiting hurricane victims and relief workers in North Carolina and Georgia. This also happens to be good politics. She also met with Volodomir Zelensky.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskiy speaks at the 79th United Nations General Assembly at United Nations Headquarters in New York, United States, September 25, 2024. Reuters/Mike Seeger (Reuters/Mike Seeger)
Mr. Harris participated in a fundraiser over the weekend. Why bother? Her campaign has already spent $400 million, and she already outspends Mr. Trump by a 2-1/2 margin. She doesn’t need money anymore. Additionally, Ms. Harris is not in the news at these fundraisers, which are conducted off-camera in any case. Ground combat is great, but it has to be tied to a message of victory.
Another former Obama official, Dan Pfeiffer, wrote in his Substack column “The Message Box” that “The media, especially Politico Playbook, is outraged by Harris-Waltz’s media strategy.” states.
Camara said: “You have to be aggressive all the time. You have to say something new, you have to be sharp enough to grab attention, you have to dictate the terms, otherwise the campaign can come to nothing…this media There is a never-ending, insatiable desire for content in the world of . Will you be offering lunch or will it be on the menu?
“It’s Trump’s political superpower to monopolize attention… Even when there’s no important moment, Trump makes statements so outlandish that attention shifts to issues of his choosing.”
Sniping from the sideline is now easier. Harris’s even performance in the core battleground states shows she’s been doing a lot of things right. She had to overhaul the Biden operation and vet her running mate while the campaign was in full swing, like changing a tire on a speeding hot rod. She could still win.
One positive sign is that the Harris campaign removed the bubble wrap and allowed Tim Walz to appear on “Fox News Sunday.” This was an attempt at damage control, as he lost badly to J.D. Vance in debate.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
As Shannon Bream repeatedly pressed the governor on late-term abortions, Minnesota’s record, and history of lies and exaggerations, Walz was much more forceful than he was during the CBS debate. Although he avoided certain questions, the interview format suits him much better than a friendly exchange with an opponent.
Woltz’s next destination? Jimmy Kimmel is a man who enjoys feuding with Trump.
