Harris, Walz Avoiding The Press Isn’t A Savvy Campaign Strategy

The New Republic, a publication I can vaguely recall from my youth (when people last cared about it), is saying the quiet part out loud: “Kamala Harris Doesn’t Need Policy to Win.”

This might be a true statement, but coming from the media, Kamala’s policy, or lack thereof, ought to be examined as a matter of public interest. Which is to say that the question they should be asking is not whether Kamala can win an election without talking about policy but whether she should.

Kamala Harris still doesn’t have a single policy position listed on her website. Even Mark Penn, a former top adviser to Hillary Clinton, is appalled:

One interview. One debate. Some rah rah stump speech you read over and over. And voila you have a 50 per cent chance of being president.

Good gig if you can get it. No 3 debates. No 2 years of primaries, coalition building, no detailed policy development, and no daily press briefings. Or tests of leadership.

It’s only the most important job in the world with a $6 trillion budget and thousands of nuclear weapons.

The right thing would be 3 debates, real detailed policy briefings, and full availability to answer questions so the electorate could vote on an informed basis. That’s what real democracy demands.

Then again, it seems obvious that there’s a clear reason why Kamala Harris isn’t being subjected to debates, primaries, detailed policy explanations, daily press briefings, etc. She’s famously terrible at all those things. Maybe it’s more accurate to say Harris is bad at explaining herself in almost any public forum in a way that doesn’t make her sound completely vapid, but it turns out that all these tests of leadership hinge on that.

And the lengths to which they are going to ensure she doesn’t have to answer questions are officially comical — see her recent bizarre boarding of a plane where she had her headphones plugged into her phone, while still holding her phone up to her ear. Either she really wanted to send a strong visual signal that she was on the phone and therefore unable to take questions or she’s an idiot who doesn’t know how phones work. Come to think of it, these explanations are not mutally exclusive.

Indeed, explaining yourself is the bare minium of what stewarding democracy, nuclear weapons, and trillions of dollars demands, but Harris’ handlers have decided that even doing that much is too risky. And what’s the word for people who refuse to take risks for selfish reasons, even when the welfare of others depends on it? It would be fair to say that everyone involved in this campaign, starting with Harris herself, is a total coward.

Penn is also being generous when he says that she’s done “one interview,” in that she still had Walz along for the ride, was given absurdly favorable treatment by CNN’s Dana Bash, and still The New York Times had no choice but to conclude that “A Vague, Vacuous TV Interview Didn’t Help Kamala Harris.” (This video contrasting Bash’s hostile treatment of J.D. Vance and her hand-holding in the Harris interview ought to end Bash’s career, but CNN is clearly back in the business of encouraging unethical media double standards.) Last month, even CNN acknowledged your basic media interview was a forum where she was “historically vulnerable.” But doesn’t democracy demand she be able to acquit herself in a room with hostile foreign leaders, let alone cheerleaders like Bash?

Any defense of Harris not opening her mouth for the next two months basically starts and ends with the fact that there’s almost nothing she can say to help herself. To the minor extent that her campaign has talked about policy, it’s to oppose unpopular policies supported by … Kamala Harris. The Harris campaign recently sent out an email noting she “does not support an electric vehicle mandate.” When Axios’ Alex Thompson “asked if that meant she would veto or sign the bill she co-sponsored in 2019 [with] such a mandate for manufacturers,” Harris declined to comment.

At least regarding EVs, Harris said something about a policy. In the past, Harris has supported legislation for reparations, and now her campaign is refusing to say whether she supports them or not. (Aside from the obvious controversy surrounding the policy, it’s an interesting question — because guess who’s the only living president, let alone presidential candidate in this election, who has no ancestors who were slaveholders?)

Harris’ running mate, Tim Walz, who has lied about being in combat and specifically left the military after he found out he would deploy in a war zone, is about the most classic embodiment of a coward one could imagine. In fact, “coward” is exactly what the soldiers who served with him in the National Guard are calling him.

Suffice to say, he hasn’t suddenly found a spine running for vice president, either, given this recent exchange at the Minnesota State Fair:

“What’s your reaction to the six hostages being found dead in Gaza?” an unnamed reporter is heard asking Walz while he greeted supporters.

“All right,” he said without answering and then turned around to leave. “Thanks, everybody!” he said as he waved his hand goodbye to the crowd while walking away.

You don’t even have to stake out a position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — but you absolutely should — to at least say you’re upset by the tragedy that occurred and express concern for the families! Then again, forget peace in the Middle East; all you have to do is ask Walz if he’ll take any substantive questions and he goes ghost.

The electoral contrast here is pretty stark. On the question of Trump’s courage, besting Harris may be a low bar, but it would have been a more complex answer a few months ago. Now? Res ipsa loquitur. On the policy front, just yesterday Trump “outlined a suite of economic proposals in a speech” that involved his corporate tax rates, plans to reduce regulation, and “a government efficiency commission to be headed by Elon Musk.” At least one of Trump’s economic proposals has been so politically potent — no taxes on tips — that Kamala Harris outright stole it to keep the powerful casino unions in Nevada on the Democrat Party reservation.

J.D. Vance, aside from fearlessly doing hostile media interviews and acquitting himself very well, is about as fluent in discussing policy as politicians come. As Zaid Jilani notes, “It’s hilarious how JD Vance dropped a whole policy manifesto in a Twitter reply and Kamala Harris can’t describe one policy in this level of detail in a televised interview.”

Of course, you might ask yourself, “What choice does Kamala Harris have?” Well, say what you want about Barack Obama, he wasn’t afraid to go out on the campaign trail and convince people he was a pragmatist who had disavowed his association with a menagerie of anti-American radicals. He made real arguments to convince voters, whether or not we’re all worse off because he brazenly lied about major policies and ultimately acted on his radical tendencies once in office. But Harris is no Obama, and she has neither the guts nor the skill to even try to convince people she’s something she’s not.

If Harris is this fearful of even talking about herself, let alone what she will do if we entrust her with an awesome amount of power, obviously she shouldn’t be president. And yet the press and the entire Washington establishment are still championing her. After all, someone who lacks courage isn’t about to change the way Washington works, and it’s working out pretty well for a bunch of rich partisan elites. The people in the rest of the country may be struggling, but who cares about what democracy demands?

Mark Hemingway is the Book Editor at The Federalist, and was formerly a senior writer at The Weekly Standard. Follow him on Twitter at @heminator