OPINION:
Vice President Kamala Harris did not trip on the debate stage, smack her head on the lectern, pass out or vomit on herself Tuesday night. She cackled only once.
So for her, it was a ringing success.
But her big, insurmountable political problem remains. Will voters cast their ballots based on a fairly unmemorable debate in which she said nothing? Or will they cast their ballots based on whether they are better off today than they were nearly four years ago when Ms. Harris and President Biden took office?
“I’m an open book,” former President Donald Trump said at one point in the debate. “Everybody knows what I’m gonna do.” Ms. Harris replied by saying, without evidence, that “Donald Trump has no plan for you.”
Mr. Trump, she said throughout the night, cares only about serving himself — this from the woman who has dedicated her life to saying anything she needs to say to get herself elected to the next public office.
She then claimed to have a plan for an “opportunity economy” — a plan she said is approved by Goldman Sachs and the Wharton School of Business. But apparently, the plan is so super secret that she will not let voters see it until after the election.
But we know Goldman Sachs loves it!
“It’s like four sentences,” Mr. Trump joked. “Like ’run, Spot, run.’”
As for Ms. Harris, she was so unprepared to talk about Mr. Trump’s successful agenda that she instead attacked a plan that Mr. Trump did not come up with and has not endorsed. In fact, he has specifically and repeatedly distanced himself from the plan and even says he has never read it.
But that is the only Trump agenda Ms. Harris was prepared to mention.
The only economic plans she mentioned during the debate were things she has openly stolen from Mr. Trump, such as a child tax credit and eliminating taxes on tips.
She has plagiarized so many of Mr. Trump’s policies that he quipped “I was going to send her a MAGA hat.”
One area on which Ms. Harris really boned up before the debate was how to look at Mr. Trump whenever he was speaking. She did the glare. Fake smile. Chin down. Then she tried her head cocked back quizzically.
A few times, such as when Mr. Trump noted that Ms. Harris’ father was a professor of Marxism, Ms. Harris brought her hand to her chin — fake grin — as if posing for some kind of Roman statue to be carved of her.
Anyone tuning in to find out where she stands on the issues or see evidence of integrity or political principle got all fakery.
“You deserve a president who puts you first,” said the woman who will say anything to get herself elected.
She went through all of the known hoaxes and smears against Mr. Trump.
Not once did the ABC moderators even attempt to curb any of her more audacious lies, such as her claim that Mr. Trump called neo-Nazis marching in Charlottesville, Virginia, “good people.”
But boy, were they ready to go after Mr. Trump.
The moderators apparently spent even more time than Ms. Harris did going after Mr. Trump.
Lots of questions about the U.S. Capitol riot on Jan. 6 and not a single question about Ms. Harris’ support for the Black Lives Matter riots across the country. At one point, Mr. Trump started talking about the influence-peddling corruption in the Biden-Harris administration and one of the moderators quickly interjected.
“Thank you. We’ve got a lot of issues to get to,” Linsey Davis sniffed, shutting down further discussion. Unsurprisingly, the moderators never got back to that one.
For the rest of history, politicians preparing for a political debate will watch this ABC debate and study the performance of the moderators to see how you go after someone in a debate.
One of the moderators, David Muir, looks and sounds like one of those mid-wits who has gotten through life by looking serious and being very tall. What is funny about Mr. Muir is that he is not very tall.
He opened the debate by welcoming viewers to “this unprecedented race for president.”
Well, I guess that is better than a “precedented” one.
As always, it was Mr. Trump against everybody else. The only one on his side Tuesday night was Lady Luck, who won him the coin flip so he got the last word.
He wondered why if Ms. Harris has all these great secret plans to fix everything she doesn’t get immediately to Washington right now and fix them since she is the sitting vice president.
Then he answered his own question. It’s because Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris are “the worst president and worst vice president in history.”
End of debate.
• Charles Hurt is opinion editor at The Washington Times.
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