‘It was frustrating to watch’: 3 columnists on Harris’s CNN town hall
Harris’s town hall gave her a last-minute chance to reach undecided
voters. How did she do?
Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at a CNN town hall in Aston,
Pennsylvania, on Wednesday. (Charly Triballeau/AFP/Getty Images)
By Matt Bai
October 24, 2024 at 10:29 a.m. EDT
The candidate’s “closing argument” is a cliché of modern campaign
coverage, but for Vice President Kamala Harris, it’s pretty urgent. The
election might hinge on a few voters who haven’t made a final decision,
and her CNN town hall on Wednesday night might have been her last
chance to reach a large number of them. How did she do?
Matt Bai: We’ve seen plenty of strange firsts in this campaign, but still I
was struck by hearing a nominee for president call her opponent an actual
fascist — and in the first three minutes of a town hall! I think I would
summarize Kamala Harris’s closing argument from the night as: “You
really need to vote for anybody but Donald Trump. And I’m anybody.”
Right? Do we think that argument landed?
Jim Geraghty: Yes, she tried to paint Trump as extreme and dangerous all
night. Besides calling Trump fascist, Harris repeated the line that Trump
allegedly called fallen soldiers “suckers” and “losers.” The Atlantic
reported that back in September 2020. More than 74 million Americans
voted for him two months later. I know lots of Democrats think that line
should be disqualifying. And the Jan. 6 attack should be disqualifying.
And Trump’s four indictments should be disqualifying. And his conviction
should be disqualifying. But for those remaining undecided, they aren’t
disqualifying. Stop making the argument that this crowd has heard and
rejected a hundred times. Find another argument about Harris’s qualities.
Matt: It’s almost as if Trump were an incumbent, isn’t it? She’s trying very
hard to make the whole campaign a referendum on him and his fitness.
Which might be her best argument, but as you point out, Jim, it’s not as if
voters haven’t factored that in at this point.
Shadi Hamid: It was frustrating to watch. Maybe not being Trump is
enough, but I think voters want to be inspired beyond lesser-of-two-evils
arguments (or “vibes”), and she struggles to offer that. The core of her
message seems to be that Trump is really, really bad. Which he is. But that
clearly hasn’t been enough for a large number of voters. Trump is pulling
even or even slightly ahead in electoral college forecasts. The other thing
we saw is that she still struggles to answer questions directly and clearly.
I think part of the problem is that she doesn’t have strong core
convictions, so she often has to calculate what to say instead of just
stating what she actually thinks.
Jim: We can debate whether that crowd was genuinely undecided.
Perhaps CNN found the one Swarthmore College political science
professor who’s undecided — between Harris and Jill Stein, maybe? — but
you could sense the crowd hungering for one clear policy distinction from
Joe Biden.
Matt: Yes, exactly. Not to pile on, because I thought her indictment of
Trump at the outset was pretty bracing, but I was struck by the answers
she doesn’t have at this late stage of the campaign. CNN’s Anderson
Cooper asked about tax policy, and she responded: “We can’t have this
conversation ... . It’s a very complicated situation.” She couldn’t answer a
question about expanding the Supreme Court. She’s been asked about a
thousand times about her shifting positions on fracking and health care,
and somehow she hasn’t found a direct answer. I don’t really understand
it. But I think if people are asking why she isn’t running away with this
election, you saw the answer.
Jim: I think Harris looked and sounded a little tired at this town hall.
Nothing serious, just the consequence of a grueling campaign. I don’t
think I saw anything that suggested she’s panicking or senses she’s
losing, but she certainly didn’t sound like a candidate who’s confident
she’s going to win. She sounded as though she sees what the rest of us
see — seven swing states that are all jump balls. But I guess if you feel as
though any wrong answer, any policy proposal could cost you that 1
percent in a state you need, you get terrified of getting too specific on
anything.
Shadi: I think she’s so afraid of alienating people with the wrong answers,
but this can lead to the worst of both worlds, where she ends up offering
answers that satisfy no one. Voters respect conviction and authenticity.
This is at the core of Trump’s success and appeal: You might not like what
he says, but at least he says what he thinks.
Matt: Look, as we talk about this, I can hear friends of mine and readers
shouting: “But she’s better than Trump! Why are you criticizing her for not
having specific answers when he wants to suspend the Constitution?!”
And I get that. I agree on the choice. But if the question here is why can’t
she close the deal, then you have to acknowledge the obvious. Her
answers are not reassuring to voters who for whatever reason need to feel
as though the alternative to Trump is someone they can feel good about. I
get why it frustrates Democrats to have that conversation. But it
frustrates me, too, as an independent. I want her to clear that bar, and I’m
mystified as to why it’s so hard.
Shadi: Her answers on Gaza were a textbook example of completely
punting on tough questions. I’ve been very critical of the Harris campaign
on this. I think it could cost her Michigan. Once again, she acknowledged
that too many civilians have been killed, but she refuses to say anything
about America’s complicity in the supplying the weapons that kill them.
She speaks about Palestinians in the passive voice, as if they were victims
of some natural disaster. The audience member who brought it up wasn’t
asking for pro forma expressions of thoughts and prayers. She wanted to
know what Harris would do to stop a war that is made possible through
U.S. weaponry and billions of dollars of military aid to Israel.
Matt: There were a lot of answers like that — probably more than there
were clear ones. Let me ask you guys this: Do we think she’s speaking to
the right voters right now? I do think these moderate Republicans and
independents will turn the election in close states. I think tactically Harris
and her campaign have been very smart. But I also hear the argument
from Democrats who feel as though she should be shoring up her base
and getting it to turn out.
Shadi: I find myself somewhat baffled by her strategy. Instead of
addressing the very real anger from Arab and Muslim Americans and
young progressives about war in the Middle East, she has spent the past
few weeks touting the support of Liz Cheney and other old-guard
Republicans. In the closing weeks of a tight campaign, turnout and
enthusiasm are key. If you’re undecided, you’re probably already
alienated from the political system, so hearing that some Republican
elites think Trump is unstable isn’t likely to be particularly compelling.
Jim: I wonder if what we’re seeing is a consequence of being an elected
official in California — where once you’ve won the primary, you’re home
free. Before 2020, she never had to close the deal in a place like Delaware
County, Pennsylvania. Harris has a billion dollars, and she’s running
against Donald Trump; her campaign should not have any problems
getting out the Democratic Party’s base.
Matt: I do think that’s part of the excessive caution, Jim. She seems very
aware that she is not in California anymore. But you would think that
would have become more routine by now.
Shadi: This is what’s plagued her from the beginning: excessive caution.
And it’s worth noting that Trump is the polar opposite — completely
indifferent to calculating or thinking through anything he says before he
says it. Presumably there’s a middle ground?
Matt: Not in this campaign — no middle ground. Maybe she’s right to rely
on that contrast. What was her best moment at the town hall?
Jim: Two good moments for Harris: The first was when she came close to
drawing a meaningful distinction between how she would govern and how
Biden governed by emphasizing that she’s at a different stage of life at
age 60 compared with Biden’s almost 82. Harris said she looks at
American life through the experiences of the “sandwich generation” —
people who are taking care of their kids and elderly parents,
simultaneously. That wasn’t exactly brimming with policy detail, but at
least it offered a sense of how her life experience would shape her policy
priorities, at least in domestic policy. The second was her surprisingly
personal response to a good question from Cooper about her pastor. Why
are we just hearing about her religious/spiritual side now?
Matt: Especially given the voters she’s trying so hard to reach. I agree that
those were good answers. And I thought her opening volley on Trump was
pretty tight. Sure, we’ve heard it all before, but at the end of the day, it’s
her best argument: “I’m not perfect, but for crying out loud, I’m not him.” I
also give her credit for doing the town hall. Trump didn’t bother. I think
actual voters bore him.
Shadi: I was pleasantly surprised by her remarks about her pastor and her
faith. It was a bit jarring, because we’ve heard so little of that from her. It
could just be the standard Democratic discomfort with talking openly
about religion. Good on her for opening up about it here. But not doing
that more over the past three months seems like a missed opportunity.
There’s a widespread perception — and not an entirely unfair one — that
the Democratic Party has increasingly secularized and become less
hospitable to people of faith. Democrats shouldn’t allow religion to be
right-coded. If they do, they’re going to continue having major problems,
including with Black and Brown communities, who tend to be significantly
more religious and socially conservative than White liberals.
Matt: Okay. One last question: How badly do we think Harris wants you to
know that she won’t ban fracking? It should have been a drinking game.
For a second there, I thought she might just whip out a drill and start
fracking through the auditorium floor, just to make the point.
Jim: Frack yeah, baby! By next week, Harris will be leading a cheer of
“Drill, baby, drill!”
Shadi: My overall assessment is that even if it was frustrating, it wasn’t a
disaster. The fact that she doesn’t seem to have strong core beliefs could,
I suppose, even be spun as a positive. After all, do we really want an
inflexible ideologue in the White House? Sometimes it’s good to flip-flop,
because it shows you’re responsive to popular opinion and are willing to
adapt to changing circumstances. Still, I can’t help but feel there’s a
middle ground: clear core beliefs plus some degree of nimbleness around
specific policy questions. This wasn’t nimbleness. Again, it wasn’t that
bad, but is “not that bad” really all we should be expecting at this late
stage?
Matt: She actually tried to give that exact answer! Not as clearly or
succinctly, but I thought there was a good answer in there somewhere
about pragmatism and evolving in your beliefs. She was right.
Jim: Harris fans will argue, fairly, that she’s getting grief for vague or
evasive answers, while Trump is giving direct and disturbingly specific
answers on the pressing issue of Arnold Palmer’s zucchini.
|
|