Finally, it’s over.
Both conventions, that is.
All the one-liners, burns and various attempts at stand-up insult comedy that practically never work. The whole panoply of B- and C-list politicos who mostly prove they should really be on the D-list, not to mention moldering has-beens like Leon Panetta (who asked for that?) and Hillary Clinton, the one who lost to Donald Trump in the first place!
These awful advertisements for authoritarianism should have shrunk back a long time ago. The online nomination should be the way forward. The only useful part of these tedious confabs is the acceptance speech by the nominee.
Which brings us to Kamala Harris.
Harris delivered a speech right out of the political consultant and pollster playbook. She followed the standard structure of someone introducing herself to voters for the first time — begin with the humble bio, contrast it with your venal opponent and then hit the main policy issues, weaving in criticisms of your opponent and, of course, de rigueur patriotic references.
Funny thing is, she didn’t really say that much.
There were no truly memorable slogans or catchphrases. “Opportunity Economy” was a decent line, and maybe that will be a theme, but she didn’t say much about it. There were no real proposals, just generic bromides and what she wasn’t going to do — for example, she won’t end Social Security. That’s a relief.
Like Trump, she put no meat on the bone. But unlike Trump, she stuck to the teleprompter, and at least tossed all her target constituencies a bone.
Hitting Trump where it hurts
Harris made a smart shift in dealing with Trump. She ignored the temptation to go for cheap laughs and dimwitted jokes (unlike the rest of her party). Instead, she went after Trump as an unstable, self-interested, “unserious” man — a major weak point. In the most recent YouGov poll, 52 percent of independents and 54 percent of women believed Trump did not have the temperament to be president.
Harris eschewed the lame quips, repeating the mantra of an unserious Trump in different ways. Trump as president would have “no guardrails,” and seeks to “serve himself.” Meanwhile, Harris calls herself “realistic, practical” and possessing “common sense.”
Harris did not plagiarize Nikki Haley’s “end the chaos” line exactly, but she came close. Her promise to “move past the bitterness, cynicism and divisiveness” strikes the right chord (although she better hope nobody was watching the rest of the convention).
Clearly the Harris campaign wants to make personality a key part of the public debate; Trump is not only vulnerable, according to them, he is likely to be an uncontrolled bad news buffet.
Campaign preview
Just as President Biden’s State of the Union speech was an explicit roadmap for his campaign against Trump, so it was with Harris’s acceptance speech. She hit two vulnerabilities for Republicans, Social Security and abortion. The occasional musings by conservatives about privatizing Social Security or addressing its looming shortfalls are manna from heaven for Democrats. Voters hate the idea of anyone touching entitlements or cutting the benefits they worked for. Harris will be beating that horse through November.
Although abortion is not a top issue for voters, it is a winner for Democrats. In the July 30 YouGov poll, 58 percent of independents and 61 percent of women wanted abortion to be always or mostly legal, against 32 percent and 35 percent on the always or mostly illegal side, respectively. Considering Republican have no unified message and parts of the pro-life movement even oppose IVF, which is overwhelmingly popular, abortion is a winner for Harris.
On her two toughest issues, immigration and inflation, Harris did some damage control and made an interesting gambit — thought it’s hard to say whether either will work.
On immigration, the vice president took advantage of Trump’s inane public demand that Republicans tank the bipartisan border bill, with Harris promising to sign the bill if elected. She glossed over the fact that her boss could have been taking action on his own, but Harris just needs to muddy the issue, as it is not a top concern for independents.
Harris’s gambit on inflation was much more interesting. She turned Trump’s tariff proposal into a “national sales tax.” Quite the rhetorical contortion, but like with immigration, she is trying to muddy the waters on an issue for which her “solutions” have been roundly panned.
Acknowledging house price inflation, she promised to end the housing shortage (no details) and included in her bio section bashing big banks and helping homeowners as California attorney general — look for that in coming ads. With disapproval of Biden’s handling of inflation at 59 percent (58 percent on immigration), Harris has to say something. And that’s about all she said.
Yet again, Harris is taking advantage of Trump’s fumble in him not connecting illegal immigration to a lack of housing and rising prices. Trump’s failure to talk about inflation until recently, and failure to connect it to Biden administration overspending and overregulation, is allowing Harris to plot a path to limit the damage.
Dull small ball vs. the Trump circus
Clearly Harris and her team are betting voters are tired of the Trump circus and are good with a non-descript, workmanlike president. Unremarkability is a virtue Harris will sell. Her speech was about as ideology-free as any Democrat can get. Climate change did not even merit its own sentence (only 8 percent of independents call it a top issue and 1 percent of Republicans). Only Trump-friendly billionaires were bashed, with no corporate greedflation talk.
Harris’s goals are to minimize the damage from inflation and immigration, while getting clear wins on abortion, health care and Social Security. She wants to contrast herself to Trump as the practical, reasonable candidate who wants to move past the contention of the past eight years, running against his inanity and insanity. Her speechwriters must read The Hill.
Will the electorate accept this Kamala Harris? She still has a tough road ahead. The public is still uneasy about economic conditions, and more repression in Venezuela by election-stealing President Maduro may mean a burst in illegal immigration. In a difficult issue environment, Harris largely still has to rely on Trump fumbling.
So far, he is obliging her.
Keith Naughton is co-founder of Silent Majority Strategies, a public and regulatory affairs consulting firm, and a former Pennsylvania political campaign consultant.
