Speaking with Ezra Klein shortly before Kamala Harris chose him as her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz made a case That the best way to win over Trump supporters is not with mockery or mockery but with grace. “Those people at those rallies, you insult them at great risk,” Walz said. “Your neighbor is flying [MAGA] flag, you insult them at great risk. Because they are my relatives. They really are and I know them.
It was a response that captured the qualities that made Harris so fond of Walz: his decency, his humanity, and his connection, informed by his upbringing in the Midwest and his decades spent teaching rural communities in Nebraska and Minnesota. So when was Walz asked a reporter After the recent rally about his group of relatives supporting Trump, he should have a full answer at the ready. Instead, he said nothing.
This is Harris-Wolz Media strategy in a nutshell: Avoid the press at all costs, even if questions are asked that should be layups. The Democratic ticket, or perhaps those who advise them, believe that nothing good can come of talking to the media — that answering questions only invites negative coverage of pseudo-scandals (like Walz’s relatives endorsing Trump) rather than the real issues at stake. gives In November. If this sounds familiar, it’s because of President Biden Used the same media strategy In his re-election campaign. It didn’t work out so well for him—and it might not have for Harris.
There are indeed real issues at stake in this election—economic inequality, housing affordability, the climate crisis, Israel’s war on Gaza, and the migration crisis, to name a few—but Where Harris stands On them lies one of the great mysteries of this campaign; Her policy agenda is, at best, a rough sketch of a first draft of a real agenda. And the mystery only grows because she refuses to talk to the press, giving only one national television interview—a joint meeting With Walz — since becoming a nominee.
Media scrutiny is good in its own right. Interviews with serious journalists, viz Columbia Journalism ReviewJohn Allsopp argued Last month, “We have the best forum to stress-test candidates’ positions and hold them to account.” That argument may not sway Harris’ team, but it’s also strategically unwise to avoid the media: The longer he goes without speaking one-on-one with the press, the more coverage he gets about his failure to speak to the press. In mid-August, Semaphore’s Benji Sirlin noted That her failure to do a sitdown “was a thing,” and that hasn’t changed: On Friday, Axios observed that “Vice President Harris is not subject to media scrutiny typical of presidential nominees.” Her efforts to fend off the media are reinforcing the exact narrative that Donald Trump and his allies are pushing — that she’s not ready to be president.
It is undoubtedly true that there is a national media less important Any presidential election has been in decades, if not 100 years or more. But that doesn’t mean it’s completely unimportant. Like cable news and major newspapers The New York Times And The Washington Post There is still power and influence. The media environment may be fractured—with both candidates embracing online influencers more than actual journalists—but millions of voters pay attention to the same outlets that Harris avoids. Indeed, interview Harris has Full is targeted and bypasses the big, national outlets: On Friday, she did Two radio interviewsOne with comedian Ricky Smiley and the other with Angel Baby, who hosts a popular Spanish-language show on the Univision subsidiary in Phoenix.
The biggest problem with Harris’ media strategy isn’t that it’s avoiding scrutiny. Although well established, much of the hand-wringing from journalists is self-important and solipsistic. (While Harris should do more interviews, the idea that she should Reserve one day a week As for the sitdown with the media, which NBC’s Chuck Todd began in late August, it’s absurd.) Instead, the biggest problem with Harris’ media strategy is that it’s no different from the one employed by Biden during his disastrous re-election campaign.
Biden was being shielded from the press in part because he had become more gaffe-prone and was showing obvious signs of aging. But it was also because its campaigners were convinced that outlets such as times were Out to get Biden; He believed that any scrutiny of his campaign, presidency, or general well-being was a sign that the media was not only biased but might even be rooting for Trump. Boy the line below them.
This was always a ridiculous idea. yes, The New York Times It has its drawbacks. But read his staff editorial — he’s definitely not in the tank for Trump. Instead, the Biden campaign was guided by a premise that is inimical to the very practice of journalism: that the threat that Trump poses to the country means that any investigation of Biden would be unreasonable and unfair. Biden was hiding from the press not because he was old but because his advisers were engaged in a self-destructive feud with the media. That feud continues now that Harris is nominated.
This in itself is troubling. But it’s also troubling because it suggests the people running the Biden campaign still have influence over the Harris campaign. They should not. They ran one of the most inept re-election campaigns in recent memory, leading to a Trump landslide. None of these people have any business being anywhere near the election that results from this. Instead, they are using the same stupid ideas times Harris is out to get!—to guide their decisions, accepting Sycophants, TikTokers, and YouTubers While hiding their intelligent candidate from intelligent reporters at major outlets followed by millions of intelligent voters. So who, exactly, is insulting whom here?
Harris is more able to speak to the press and take a stand on issues (even if she is developing a habit of changing her mind, even on those issues). Almost no one talks about it). She should talk to the press more. She must do it to show that she can run the country, which she can. She must do it to show that she understands the policy, which she does. She should do it because it will generate media attention that will almost certainly benefit her campaign. But she must also show that she is not running the same campaign that lost to Trump six weeks ago. Because right now, that’s exactly what she’s doing.
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