Kamala Harris Vows Country First — A Unifying Voice Against Trump’s Self-Image Campaign
It seems hard enough to have to introduce yourself to recalcitrant voters as a candidate who can appeal across so many simultaneous policy and personal cliffs.
But, as Kamala Harris showed last night in a speech at once uplifting, serious and challenging, if you know your own values, you understand how far you feel comfortable stretching to win an election that seems overly dependent on selling an image. She was working hard to leave us thinking she is about preserving freedoms and democracy, and about joyful pursuit of caring with and for others.
As her already known opponent, Donald Trump is an expert on self-image, however opposite from Harris’ self-projection. Trump remains clearly prepared to say, deny, overstate, invent, or over-promise in any way possible to win — at the ballot box or in the vote count. Trump insists on presenting himself as a singular savior in a world beset with enemies that include the very people he would propose to lead.
So, color each of them successful at drawing us a picture of the who at stake in the election and a general direction that alternately appreciates or demeans the role of government itself.
Indeed, it is frankly hard to comprehend why there are voters reporting themselves
“undecided” between the two. With Joe Biden out, there even is no evident voter concern about age, though Trump hardly seems free of the kind of slurring, forgetfulness and mental stiffness that drove ill perception of Biden. Perhaps frustrated by a lack of exactitude from Harris or Trump on specific issues over which they alone may have no complete control, the choice rather seems to be voting at all or knowingly tossing a vote away on a protest candidate or write-in.
Honing a Message
News accounts suggested that Harris had worked hard over time to develop her pitch that her candidacy is about the “for the people” theme that she traced through her time as prosecutor, attorney general and political service. She has hit hard at preserving individual freedoms, and a kind of patriotism that depends on helping the vulnerable.
Indeed, in her own words and in the parade of support over four days, Harris brought us a view of politics that had seemed next to impossibly upbeat. When she talked practical policy like new price-gouging rules, the results were less successful.
Trump uses similar words with completely different meanings, as in suggesting that freedom is liberty from taxation and regulation, and patriotism means closing the border.
Amid all the oration, we get it: The Prosecutor versus The Felon, or, if you are a MAGA believer, the Savior versus Deep State. It seems an historical afterthought that this election could create the first woman president, a woman of mixed race.
If the election is all about character, the differences are sharp and unyielding: Harris laughs and works off data, Trump scowls, insults, and depends on gut. If it’s about the future for abortion rights or what exactly border policing looks like or the goals of health care access, housing, crime, war policies and climate, some voters will find reason to abhor either.
In the end, it could be that people vote on their perceived feelings more than on the specific policies that define what a winning candidate would do with the power of the office. As with evaluating job candidates, the hard part of politics is trusting an applicant to translating soupy bromides into measurable action that may well depend more on the elections for Congress than for the White House.
American voters almost surely will be sending mixed messages with their votes.
The Hard Part
With only two months and days to November 5, those undecideds and those turned off by one side or the other are going to force the candidates to shore up their ideas. The hard part is what happens next to persuade and to grind out the turnout necessary to win.
If Trump really wants to disown the 900-page Project 2025 goals that look to slash individual liberties and undercut institutions, he will have to spell out what he does accept. If Harris wants us to see her as substantively separate from Biden, she needs to help us know a bit more about her thinking.
The election must be more than a referendum on abortion rights or an up-or-down vote on closing the border. The issues we face are more complicated than fit in a bumper sticker. Gauzy advertising about generalities seems more annoying than informative.
The rallies by each that repeat the same stump speech clearly only bring the same message to new regional audiences; there is little to learn. A debate scheduled for next month may be useful, but only if the candidates adhere to providing useful answers; most of us already know how we feel about the personal character of each. News interviews or unscripted question responses can help only if the positions on policy matter.
At this point, name-calling and labeling probably won’t help either to attract another vote.
It would be useful to know exactly how each campaign is strategically pursuing those relatively few undecided votes and how the Harris campaign is planning to defend against the now extensive reporting on renewed election schemes by Trump forces to delay or withhold certification of votes in districts where they dislike the results.
This DNC convention seemed hugely successful in introducing Kamala Harris-Tim Walz amid momentum and good will, just as Republicans saw in their convention. But it doesn’t resolve the big questions.
