Let’s start with an unfortunate truth for both Republicans and those in my calling: Persuasive voters couldn’t care less when, within reason, Vice President Kamala Harris sits down for a “serious” interview or gives a press conference. gala press.
The news media is one of the least admired institutions in American public life, not as bad as Congress, but pretty terrible, given that our commerce is based on trust and accuracy. When we are, rightly and understandably, obsessed with Harris laughing at our demands that she submit to our ministries, normal, persuadable voters probably treat us with as much sympathy as they would car salesmen who complain that we don’t There are enough people buying extended warranties and undercovers.
Journalists care a lot about whether she gives an interview and press conference before or after the Democratic Convention, with or without her running mate, on a cute morning show or with a discreet reporter, etc. we can barely consume the news, let’s worry about these differences, we are as out of touch with reality as we are accused of being.
Republicans, however, have stuck to the idea with both hands. Funny how a 5-point variation in the polls took us from “enemies of the people” to essential guardians of public trust.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld will never fail us on these questions: “Hypocrisy is a tribute that vice pays to virtue”. Which is a nicer way of saying that we in the press should welcome the Trump campaign’s newfound respect for the fourth estate. Enjoy it while you can, because if the polls turn around again, we’ll be back at the top of the MAGA haters list.
The thinking is pretty obvious: Harris is notoriously bad at speaking extemporaneously, and when she gives her first interview as a Democratic presidential candidate, it will be the most important and intensely scrutinized session in her 34-year career in public office. Republicans are desperate for something, anything, to change the trajectory of a race that they are now certainly not just losing, but losing badly. Voters said more than a year ago that they wanted someone other than the 2020 retread, and now they have her.
In service of the Republicans’ effort to oust Harris, former President Donald Trump held a rare news conference last week with the gaggle of reporters covering his campaign at his subtropical hermitage in Mar-a-Lago.
In another benefit to journalistic responsibility, the most significant news he made was crawling back to a September 10th debate he had left just a week before.
Also, the big news was that Trump confused two black politicians from California and invented a story about Harris’s romantic past. So we would call it no Trump’s worst press conference never, but probably won’t disturb Harris’s splendid isolation.
More effective has been Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, who, after the worst launch by a vice presidential candidate since James Stockdale, has found a firmer foothold as campaign spokesman. Disciplined and fast, Vance shows that he is a much more formidable opponent than Democrats imagined he would be.
Vance is unlikely to ever become a widely popular figure, but he is a much better striker than Trump or any other member of the team. And when he sat down for a trio of interviews on Sunday, he had a useful tool to try to take Harris’ campaign off script.
Vance’s Democratic counterpart, Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota, was correctly considered by the blue team to be the “safe” choice. By choosing a candidate favored by progressive activists, it gives Harris more room to perform flip-flop gymnastics exercises. Give the crazies what they want in a running mate and you’ll have more room to run into the middle. But Democrats figured Walz would be more than just pandering to the left. He could appeal, they believed, to white working-class voters because of his earthy style and all-American curriculum.
THE style is not wearing so wellrevealing once again that the kind of sarcasm and cruelty that delights the online parties of parties does not play with the persuadable. But it’s the curriculum that’s the real problem. Walz exaggerated his military service to gain political advantage, which, even in extreme circumstancesIt’s not necessarily fatal, but it’s always bad.
Walz’s case was not extreme. He stated a military rank he never fully secured and at least once left the strong and false impression that he was in combat. But he didn’t, for example, fabricate a very specific war story. Walz appears to have omitted rather than lied.
The biggest problem is that some of Walz’s former comrades in the Minnesota National Guard artillery battalion seems very anxious tell the US exactly what they think of the current governor’s decision to resign in 2005, before the unit left for the Iraq war, in favor of a run for Congress.
Trump, who did everything to avoid service in Vietnam and instead preferred face a different kind of danger at homeperhaps it is not well situated to attack Walz’s creditable 24 years of service. But Vance is. He was a public affairs officer in Iraq, reporting what his fellow Marines were doing around the same time Walz’s old unit was deployed.
Vance is focusing on a substantial weakness in Walz. If a politician’s brand is about humility and service, anything that points to exaggeration and self-interest is dangerous. It probably won’t be enough to bring Harris out of his shell, but it will certainly be enough to force Walz to face some unfortunate questions. The time to do an interview is when you need to change the story, and Walz certainly needs to do that.
But right now, that’s the best Republicans have going for them.
For the first time this cycle, voters prefer the Democratic candidate on how to deal with the economy-and the data suggests what is not without cause. Gas prices felland so they are border crossings and crime rates. And best of all for the ruling party, the challenger is unable to calm downand therefore unable to apply constant pressure on the leader.
Calling Walz’s record a “stolen value” may be grasping at straws, but in a race that is quickly moving away from the Republicans, it represents the only tool available right now to throw Democrats off their winning game plan. .
