It’s bumbling Kamala’s race to lose
With the first opportunity to vote early just days away, the presidential election is about to move from mere theory to practical applications. That is to say, the main event, which Americans have so long anticipated, is almost here, and we will know all too soon whether Donald Trump or Kamala Harris will be the 47th president of the United States.
There is no question that Harris and Tim Walz have made the race far more competitive than, well, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris did. Who would have thought that a simple game of musical chairs could achieve so much?
The Democrats and their media allies deserve ample credit for contriving to reintroduce Kamala, a singularly unpopular vice president, to the American people. She has been effectively shielded from controversy and criticism within a warm and fuzzy cocoon of positive press. She has been spared the agony of defining her policy positions, and instead has been gifted a vacuous idolization that focuses on her fundraising prowess, strong polls and transcendent “joy.”
On Thursday, Queen Kamala took time out from her royal duties to have a confab with one of her adoring pet reporters – doing no serious or long lasting injury to her campaign. Possibly this sit-down interview suggests a slight change of direction on her part, and a willingness to dabble in substance. In any case, the upshot of the carefully scripted, short on specifics Harris-Walz charm offensive of the last month or so is that the Democrats have pulled off a small miracle. In an age when public perceptions of leading politicians seem “baked in” and immovable, they have measurably improved the voters’ perceptions of Kamala Harris, and given her an edge on Donald Trump in terms of “favorability” that could be decisive, if it holds.
Trump’s problem is simple: The majority of Americans, and the majority of voters, don’t like him. He is, therefore, highly unlikely to get 50% of the vote – considering that, even against Joe Biden, a much weaker candidate than Harris, he almost never passed the halfway point in any poll. Moreover, because Harris has improved her image and become an acceptable potential president to so many, she has consolidated almost all of the anti-Trump vote into a Harris-Walz vote. In other words, almost everyone who hates Trump is now prepared to vote for Harris, which is bad news indeed for any and all Trumpers.
Joe Biden, by contrast, had dispirited the Democrats such that many of them were contemplating staying home, or voting for Kennedy, Stein, or West. The third-party vote, according to polls, has shrunk immensely in the last month and a half: from 12.2% of the total to just 7% now, based on the RealClearPolitics averages. What Trump needs to do is (re)seed the electorate with doubts about Harris – to push just a few more of those newly minted Harris supporters, temporarily infected with joy, back into despondency, and out of the electorate altogether, or into the arms of Stein or West. It is by no means an impossible feat to accomplish, given the extraordinary constellation of factors that have flowed together to grant Harris this remarkable honeymoon period.
So what specifically can Trump do to upset the Harris-Walz apple cart? It won’t be easy, because at least half the electorate, and possibly a bit more, still gets most of its information and analysis from a mainstream media that loathes Trump with the white-hot intensity of a thousand suns. Whatever attack lines Trump tries out – and Harris is certainly vulnerable on multiple fronts – will be ignored, or derided, by the press. Instead, Trump’s best hope might be that Harris will simply fall victim to that iron law of political physics: what goes up must come down. Almost inevitably, as Harris stretches her legs on the campaign trail, does more interviews, sallies forth on the debate stage, and has to deal with breaking news and concrete policy dilemmas, her star will begin to fade. Trump and Trumpers have every reason to hope that when it does, DJT can spring ahead in the battleground states, where already, even in the midst of springtime for Kamala, he appears to be tied. In short, political gravity alone may save Trump, regardless of what he says or does.
But, to increase the likelihood that Harris will start to bleed away support to the likes of “none of the above” or third-party candidates, we can suggest one ruse that might accelerate the process. Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate, and Cornel West, the Justice for All candidate, have both been seeking ballot access and media coverage, neither of which the political establishment and the mainstream media, both beholden to the Democratic Party, are inclined to grant. They have been fighting the good fight with very meager resources: “Both campaigns have only raised a little over $1 million. Smart Republicans understand that the success of the Harris-Walz campaign will almost certainly be in inverse proportion to the success of Stein and West, since they are competing, in many cases, for the same voters. Thus, smart Republicans have wished Stein and West well, which is fine, but they haven’t put their money where their mouth is. It may be time to do so, since, quite frankly, a strategic investment in leftist lunacy could pay dividends that yet another check written out to Trump would not.
Political artifice such as this might make a real difference, but, if we’re to be honest, this campaign, and the fate of our nation, is mostly in the hands of Kamala Harris, and secondarily in the hands of the handlers who handle Kamala Harris and tell her what to do. If she performs flawlessly and holds the anti-Trump coalition together all the way to November, she’s very likely to be our next president. If, however, she stumbles in even the slightest way – and she’s a natural bumbler, make no mistake, which is precisely why her campaign has her under lock and key – then Trump is likely to beat her. It really is that simple.
No pressure, Kamala! You got this, girl. Maybe. Maybe not.
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