OPINION:
Vice President Kamala Harris has been the de facto nominee of the Democratic Party for about six weeks now, yet has managed to sit for only one softball interview with a reliable stooge of the legacy media, Dana Bash at CNN. Ms. Harris has diligently avoided taking questions in potentially contentious environments, such as in a news conference or on the campaign plane.
The lead-up to the momentous decision to allow Ms. Harris to answer questions from the stenographers at CNN was so embarrassingly bad that Politico opened its morning newsletter before the interview with a description of the game of Twister that Ms. Harris’ campaign engaged in to determine how best to fulfill the candidate’s unwise commitment to sit for an interview while minimizing the damage likely to result from it.
The eight to 10 Harris advisers working on this issue apparently asked reporters who they thought should do the interview.
Leave aside how embarrassing it is to have to ask reporters — who should be at least at arm’s length from a campaign — who would be the best interviewer for a candidate. It’s ridiculous that a simple question over who should do a single interview would take 10 advisers.
It was also reported that the campaign was initially concerned about Ms. Harris appearing with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz because “he might not have a full command of where Harris is on every issue.” That’s certainly possible, especially given that she has not offered to explain anything in which she believes except her belief that the federal government should ration food and housing and raise taxes on everyone.
Campaign advisers apparently gave the example of Mr. Walz not being able to define “the opportunity economy,” a phrase that Ms. Harris uses from time to time but has no meaning. His lack of knowledge about the substance of the phrase places him in the company of about 330 million of his fellow Americans because there is no there there. Like the rest of the Harris campaign, the “opportunity economy” is a slogan without substance or form.
Despite all that, the decision was made to send Mr. Walz along as a security blanket for the former prosecutor.
The most remarkable yet unremarked upon fact of this presidential campaign is that in public and for the record, the surrogates for and handlers of Ms. Harris routinely describe her as smart, capable, articulate, skillfully prosecutorial, etc. At the same time, however, the same people make sure that she remains stashed away, locked securely in undisclosed locations far away from microphones and notepads.
Unless the notepads in question are the vice president’s. It is no accident that part of the negotiations over the presidential debate scheduled for Sept. 10 revolve around whether Ms. Harris will be allowed to bring notes. It seems reasonable to assume that her advisers anticipate being tipped to questions in advance and want to have written answers at the ready.
Former President Barack Obama’s favorite poet, Maya Angelou, wrote that when someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. What are those closest to Ms. Harris showing us by their consistent and energetic resistance to allowing Ms. Harris to talk freely in the public square and in front of the cameras? They are telling us that they don’t really think she is smart, capable, articulate or skillfully prosecutorial. They really think that their candidate is unburdened by any ability to create and transmit articulate and coherent thoughts and cannot think and move on her feet.
That might get her elected, but it guarantees a suboptimal presidency, as her opponents will be able to argue (correctly) that she has no mandate because she ran a content-free campaign.
* Michael McKenna is a contributing editor at The Washington Times.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.