Next Tuesday’s presidential debate will be as important as everyone says. In a close race, a good performance by one candidate could be dispositive. More dramatically one might implode, as Joe Biden did in June. People will watch to see if it happens again. This is so far the only Trump-Harris debate scheduled, and may be both the first and last time we see the candidates together and get to compare and contrast their presentation and views. We should be ashamed both parties give us so little and we allow it.
What does Donald Trump have to do? He has to demonstrate he’s sane enough, stable enough and knowledgeable enough to make wavering, centrist and independent voters grow more comfortable with the idea of “The Trump Presidency, Act II.” How might he do that? If I were advising him I’d say by presenting himself as calm, reasonable, laid back, even friendly.
He should walk across the stage, give America a break and shake his opponent’s hand.
He should let the game come to him.
He shouldn’t start out swinging; he should answer questions with spirit but steadiness. This might have the added benefit of putting Kamala Harris off her game. She probably expects jumpy aggressions and sarcasm. She will no doubt come armed with a handful of well-prepared lines aimed at piercing his armor or deflecting his attacks. Maybe she’ll uncork one in a way or at a moment that makes her look aggressive. From that moment Mr. Trump would feel free to do what he by nature enjoys, which is attack and beat down.
Is it possible he’d take any or all such advice? Probably not! He has trouble corralling himself and doing the sensible thing. His supporters all know this. It is a constant frustration to them.
In any case he should and probably will tie Ms. Harris to this idea: If you don’t think Joe Biden worked out so well, she is his second term. Did you like Afghanistan, high prices, illegal aliens and the homeless flooding the streets? She will bring you more. She will bring you no relief. The same people who ran Mr. Biden will run her, only they’ll be more progressive.
What does Ms. Harris have to demonstrate? That she is strong. That she is prepared. That she is smart. That she has sufficient gravitas. That she sometimes gets a thoughtful look because sometimes she has thoughts.
One of her supporters said this week that she should see the debate as a continuation of the process in which she introduces herself and what she stands for. She should, he said, embrace those parts of Bidenism she believes worked or are popular. James Carville, in an interview with Peter Hamby of Puck, suggested she should argue America currently has record employment, a record stock market, our first interest-rate cut in a long time. “She’s gonna say, ‘You want to come in and disrupt all of the things that we made progress on?’ ” Mr. Carville thinks this is a “pretty good” answer.
Right now and for the first time since her rise, Ms. Harris seems stalled, as if everyone around her is tight, tired and overthinking things. In the last week of August, when America was vacationing and distracted by back-to-school sales, her campaign announced that Ms. Harris would finally give her first interview as the nominee, accompanied by Gov. Tim Walz, her running mate.
I thought at the time: That’s not an interview, it’s a buddy movie. But more than that I thought: Oh no, they’re being clever. He takes the heat off; if she goes dry he’ll jump in. But this isn’t the time for clever, everyone sees through it and is tired of clever. They’d prefer honest if awkward: Ms. Harris getting grilled, and some of it works and some of it doesn’t, and then a few days later she’s grilled again by another reporter and it’s a little better, and so on. Genuineness is something people would be so relieved to see. Even imperfect genuineness—so what? Donald Trump isn’t imperfect?
More seriously, when CNN’s Dana Bash asked why she’d changed her mind on so many key issues, the vice president’s immediate response was both odd and too rehearsed. It was to insist “my values have not changed.” First, what does that even mean, if you don’t define your values? But second, why did she change her mind? She has to be able to explain her policy shifts to voters. In any case, was she signaling to progressive groups that as soon as she’s elected, and after they’ve stuck with her, she will become more progressive again? That’s a funny message to give when you’re trying to get the votes of nonprogressives.
Ms. Harris is doing something I’ve never seen, which is to go more moderate in her views and at the same time not come across as more moderate.
Soon after she filled in more of her economic plan, which now famously involves raising the top marginal income-tax rate on wages from 37% to 39.6% and capital gains from 20% to 28%, raising the federal corporate tax rate, and imposing a new tax on unrealized capital gains. The last is called a billionaire’s tax, and is said to be aimed only at taxpayers with wealth greater than $100 million. But what American hears “tax increases” and thinks “They’ll never raise ’em on me”?
Timing is everything. Compared with four years ago, Americans feel less safe on the streets, more vulnerable to mayhem, more overwhelmed with illegal immigration and people living in tents by the train station. They see deterioration, not improvement. A lot of people will think, “And in return for this we get to pay more taxes?”
If I were advising Ms. Harris, I would say she needs to establish her good faith, to convey a measuredness. The example I think of is this. Parents spent the pandemic monitoring their kids’ classroom Zooms and not liking everything they were hearing. In ensuing years this resulted in eruptions and rebellions at school board meetings and fights over what was on the library reading list.
It’s quieted down now, but the wounds and division remain. No one expects Ms. Harris to be “on the side of the parents.” She’s best friends with the teachers unions. But is she the kind of school-board member who has a natural respect for the parents? An ability to see their side, to give them a good-faith hearing? Or is she the school board chairperson who rolls her eyes when they stand and speak, and asks security to shut off the mic?
More and more I am getting the impression this will be a path election, not a person election.
Once you chose John F. Kennedy—young, bright, vigorous—and he led you down a path. You chose Ronald Reagan, and he led you down a path. You picked the person and that person said, “This way” and cut the path through the forest.
I’m feeling that a lot of people this year will be choosing the path, not the person. They’ll put up with the person, but it’s the path they want. And I’m not sure people want to go down the Blue Path any deeper than they already have.