Before Tuesday’s debate, Kamala Harris was, according to the New York Times, “holed up for five days in a Pittsburgh hotel, doing highly choreographed debate practice sessions ahead of Tuesday night’s clash.” Her “debate tutor,” Karen Dunn, “has trained Democratic presidential and vice-presidential candidates for debates in every election since 2008.
“It’s a combination of tough love,” Hillary Clinton, whom Ms. Dunn helped prepare for presidential debates in 2008 and 2016, said in an interview on Thursday. “She’s unafraid to say, ‘That’s not going to work’ or ‘That doesn’t make sense’ or ‘You can do better.’ But she also offers encouragement, like, ‘Look, I think you’re on the right track here’ and ‘You just need to do more of that.’”
But Vice President Harris’ success in the debate came from what she did less of. She didn’t depend on rebutting Trump’s lies with facts, or detailing policy achievements chapter and verse.
Kamala Harris mocked Trump, pushed back and called him out for being weird—and dangerous. Without an audience to cheer him on, Trump’s insults just sounded stupid. When asked to detail policy proposals, he couldn’t, just as he couldn’t articulate his position on child care at that “economic policy” speech last week.
Trump attacked Kamala Harris over Afghanistan, the border, energy and the economy, but his attacks fell flat as the Vice President calmly and cooly rose above them. Donald Trump revealed his glass jaw, while Kamala Harris had more than one knockout punch.
Despite the panic over the recent New York Times/Siena poll that says the race essentially tied, with little to no post convention bounce for Kamala Harris, I once again agree with
, who writes:A Close Race Is Practically an Inevitability
Being exuberant over a 3-point lead and despondent over a one-point deficit belies a misunderstanding of how polls work. Polling is an inexact science, hence a margin of error. These polls essentially convey the same message: this will be an extremely close race, likely decided by fewer people across several states than the number who attended the Michigan-Texas football game on Saturday. The margin in 2016 was around 70,000 votes, and in 2020, it was even narrower. We remain a deeply polarized and closely divided nation.
This is what he, and I, and
have been saying all along. Seven states will decide this election, and the three states that matter most are still Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. (I still believe Biden would have eked out victories there, but I’m relieved we won’t have to find out).While four other states have also been in play, Kamala Harris has moved them from Really Difficult for Biden to Definitely Maybe for Harris. I think Georgia is joining Arizona and Nevada as looking good, and North Carolina is getting better all the time. (Have you heard the latest about the Republican candidate for Governor? NSFW)
If Kamala Harris sweeps the Magnificent Seven, she’ll win 318 votes in the Electoral College. After this debate, that seems possible.
Again, quoting
:The Debate Could Change Everything
By far, Tuesday night’s debate will be the biggest moment in the Harris-Trump race. Fifty million people watched the Biden-Trump debate. I expect that number to be higher for this debate. This could be the only time the two candidates share a stage. I don’t expect the sort of movement that we saw after the Biden-Trump debate. That was a unique situation, given the fragility of Biden’s support. Harris and Trump voters are much more committed to and enthusiastic about their candidates and unlikely to abandon them over a poor performance. However, movement is on the margins among the 20% or so of voters who are either undecided or open to changing their minds.
Don’t panic over polls like the NYT/Siena survey that show Trump’s supporters sticking with him, or that “Trump holds a 13-percentage-point advantage on the issue that remains most important to voters: the economy.”
But…
“Ms. Harris holds a 15-percentage-point advantage on another leading issue: abortion.”
With abortion on the ballot in battleground states, and the issue rising to the top of what voters say they care most about, I’ll take Harris’ advantage over Trump’s. You don’t need to be a pollster to know that when you ask people how they feel about the economy, most of us—even hardcore Biden believers—have some issues. It’s a leap to conclude that Trump’s “advantage” on this question means he’ll win.
Kamala Harris won Tuesday’s debate and will now build on her lead in the polls, as Trump builds on the portrait she painted of him in the debate. He’ll continue to “weave” weirdly and reveal his insanity and dementia—something that really should be making headlines outside of Doonesbury.
I agree with what
writes in The New Republic, that “the media sanitizes Trump’s insanity.”This “sanewashing” of Trump’s statements isn’t just poor journalism; it’s a form of misinformation that poses a threat to democracy. By continually reframing Trump’s incoherent and often dangerous rhetoric as conventional political discourse, major news outlets are failing in their duty to inform the public and are instead providing cover for increasingly erratic behavior from a former—and potentially future—president.
Trump showed us a lunatic during the debate, and Kamala Harris showed us a president.
Was this attempt at future historyon the money? Tune in to the debate, and leave your judgment in the Comments.