Harris is unelectable until she says what she plans to do as president

OPINION:

In politics, nothing happens by accident.

It’s no coincidence that President Biden suddenly got the message that at 81 and fading fast, he was too old to seek reelection. No, my guess at the time he stepped aside was that he had long planned to bail out at the last minute, endorse his vice president and try to secure whatever dismal legacy he could (the history books will not be kind about his ineffectual presidency).

But now it’s clear that that’s exactly what is happening. Mr. Biden dropped out on July 21, just over 100 days before Election Day and less than a month before delegates gathered at the Democratic National Convention to nominate a candidate. That was all by design.

By mid-July, the craven powers that control the Democratic Party had sketched out a plan for Vice President Kamala Harris to run the same campaign Mr. Biden ran in 2020: Dodge the press, do few campaign events, speak only vaguely about policy and hope that wins.

In Mr. Biden’s case, he had the excuse of COVID-19 (plus the fact that, at the time, the virus was hitting people like him — old and weak — particularly hard). But Ms. Harris has no such excuse. Still, she is such a bumbling, inarticulate candidate that top Democrats decided she should hunker down, give few interviews (certainly avoid the minefield of holding a news conference) and hope that leads to the White House.

Since July 21, Ms. Harris has done just three interviews and held no news conferences. She feels no need to explain her policies to American voters, who will pick their next leader in just over 40 days. Her equally lame running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, got his marching orders, too: He has done only four interviews and no press conferences. 

In contrast, former Donald Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, have done more than 70 interviews and news conferences combined over the same period. 

Here’s why: Ms. Harris’ policies are not at all mainstream. When she has been asked questions, she has flip-flopped on major issues: Suddenly, she’s for fracking (she vehemently opposed it in 2020), she wants to close the border (she’s had nearly four years as border czar to do just that) and she pretends she’s flexible on abortion (when she got asked about the issue on Tuesday, she said she wants to do away with the Senate filibuster rule so she can reestablish nationwide abortion rights).

Twice in the campaign, she has offered major policy initiatives: price controls on consumer goods and taxing unrealized capital gains. Almost immediately, everyone — including top Democrats — declared the ideas dumb and dead.

The plan is simple: Don’t let her talk. “She is highly unlikely to do a press conference because the media have enabled and encouraged her ‘plexiglass basement’ strategy, wherein she preserves the illusion of being out there while remaining wholly inaccessible to the press and therefore unaccountable,” conservative Radio Libre host Jorge Bonilla said on Fox News.

And when she does talk, she makes no sense. Asked about her economic policies, she said: “You know, I grew up in a neighborhood of folks who were very proud of their lawn. And I was raised to believe and to know that all people deserve dignity, and that we as Americans have a beautiful character. You know, we have ambitions and aspirations and dreams, but not everyone necessarily has access to the resources that can help them fuel those dreams and ambitions.”

The Wall Street Journal’s Peggy Noonan summed it up, saying voters in 2024 have a choice between “awful and empty.” She hammered the Democratic candidate for not spelling out her policies.

“This week she couldn’t or wouldn’t answer a single question straight, and people could see it. She is an artless dodger,” Ms. Noonan wrote. “She owes us these answers. It is wrong that she can’t or won’t address them. It is disrespectful to the electorate.”

The Democrats do owe America these answers, but she won’t give them. And that’s all by design. Remember that then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in 2010, when asked about the Affordable Care Act, that “we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.”

That’s where we are now. Elect Ms. Harris to find out what she’ll do as president.

• Joseph Curl covered the White House and politics for a decade for The Washington Times. He can be reached at josephcurl@gmail.com and on X @josephcurl.