Jim Hartman
Democrats left their national convention Aug. 22 energized and looking to keep up their momentum.
On the convention’s final day, Kamala Harris re-introduced herself to American voters, promising a vague “New Way Forward” in her brief 37-minute, confidently-delivered and optimistic acceptance speech.
Harris shrewdly played on patriotic themes and aimed her remarks at persuadable voters in the political center.
The speech was mostly devoid of policy substance and her attempt to lay out a vision was largely done in platitudes. Nonetheless, Harris left the convention off to a strong start.
Republicans were also on a high coming out of their own convention in July, when Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt.
In contrast to Harris, Trump delivered a meandering acceptance speech that went on for 93-minutes.
It was his chance to show himself to the entire country as the president. Instead, he went off script and raved about whatever entered his mind, reminding voters he’s still Trump.
The former president appears off his game.
Some of his allies have sounded the alarm. His personal attacks on Harris overshadow his polling advantage on voters’ biggest issues this year: the economy and immigration. He’s all over the place and lacking a clear message for the future.
Trump has questioned Harris’s racial identity, disparaged her intelligence and continues to fixate on the 2020 election, repeatedly falsely saying it was rigged.
Some of his recent campaign claims are baffling fantasies: like his claim that the crowd at his Jan 6, 2021 rally was as big as the one at Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech in 1963. Or, his assertion that everyone in America agreed that Roe vs. Wade needed to be overturned.
Trump’s act is stale. This election he’s up against something the American people are being sold as new. Those who pay attention may know that Harris is a seasoned extreme liberal, but most voters don’t. They are offered a blank slate on which they are invited to project anything they like.
Trump reinforces the illusion of that choice. Instead of telling voters consistently and repeatedly what they are getting if they elect Harris, he too often reminds voters what they will get again by voting for Trump.
The selling of Harris requires an audacious political makeover.
Harris is no longer the vice president who failed to secure the border. She’ll now be tough on illegal migration.
She’s no longer the VP who said “Bidenomics is working” while inflation reached a 40-year high. She’s now the candidate who will reduce family food bills by going after your grocer for “price gouging.”
She’s no longer the candidate in 2020 who questioned the need for cash bail and fully supported the “defund the police” movement. She’s now the tough criminal prosecutor fighting “for the people.”
She’s no longer the presidential candidate in 2019 who wanted to ban fracking, endorsed Medicare for All outlawing private insurance, supported mandatory gun buybacks, favored decriminalizing illegal immigration and questioned whether the current Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency should exist.
Her campaign suggests she’s changed her views on all that. Voters are asked to believe her expedient leap from far-left to the center.
Former Minnesota GOP Gov. Tim Pawlenty describes his successor, current Minnesota governor and Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz as “Bernie Sanders in hunting gear.”
Pawlenty says Democrats have double-downed with Walz, the self-proclaimed most progressive governor in the country, on a “Democrat-socialist” agenda.
Nikki Haley said during the primaries that the first party to elevate a younger nominee would win the election. GOP voters didn’t listen and nominated 78-year-old Trump for a third time.
Harris is eminently beatable by a different Republican candidate. But Trump remains far less popular than his policies.
Trump must convince voters that Harris’s views are out of step with middle America. Otherwise, he will lose.
E-mail Jim Hartman at lawdocman1@aol.com.