If Harris deprives Trump of this one thing — he’s got nothing

The Times came out with a new poll. It suggested the honeymoon for Kamala Harris is over. She had enjoyed a sizable lead over Donald Trump, but now they are in a statistical dead heat. Some pundits now say the stakes for tomorrow’s debate are even higher. She has to beat him Tuesday to win the presidential election in November.

I don’t think “beating” him is her objective, though. It is, or should be, to minimize and put him in a box. Then she can say what she wants to do for the American people and why.

Why do I say beating him isn’t her goal?

For one thing, how do you win a debate against someone like Trump? He could wet his pants and still declare himself the winner. The press corps would help! Reporters would search for something, anything imperfect about Harris to balance out the old man pissing himself.

For another, the press corps’ own standards are an obstacle. In a June 29 editorial, the Times said Trump’s debate with Joe Biden proved he was unfit to govern. But it didn’t call on him to drop out. The GOP, it said, “has been co-opted by Mr. Trump’s ambitions.” Biden had to drop out, not Trump, because “the burden rests on the Democratic Party to put the interests of the nation above the ambitions of a single man.”

I don’t know how you win a debate when the other team can’t lose.

Yet another reason is voters themselves, specifically the “undecided.” They don’t care about sound policy and refined logic. What they care about is vibes. Short of being better looking and better spoken than Trump, I don’t know how Harris can win a debate for people who wouldn’t know a good argument if she slapped it out their mouths.

So her goal isn’t beating him in any conventional sense. It’s setting him aside long enough for her to speak directly to one of the biggest audiences about popular policies most people will find attractive.

And we have already had a glimpse of how she will do that.

During the vice president’s interview last month, CNN’s Dana Bash asked what Harris thought of Trump’s allegation that she exploited her biracial identity for political reasons. Bash was expecting Harris to “slap back” at Trump, because journalism thrives on conflict these days.

But Harris didn’t fall for it.

“Same old, tired playbook,” Harris said. “Next question, please.”

“That’s it?” Bash said, as if disappointed.

“That’s it,” Harris said.

Trump isn’t coming to debate. He’s coming to fight. He isn’t bothering to prepare. He isn’t doing any homework. He doesn’t care about sound policy or refined logic. His only goal is attack, attack and attack. The best outcome for him is a debate that’s so chaotic and confusing that no one can draw any conclusions, except that Trump is a fighter.

This need of his to fight is so great that without it, Trump barely has a campaign. He must appear dominant, especially with a woman. I can’t imagine Harris doesn’t know that fact about him. Nor can I imagine she would give him what he needs. Instead, I’d expect to say “same old, tired playbook,” or something similar, then direct her full attention to the grown ups in the TV audience. If he interrupts: “I’m speaking.”

This is deprivation. This is what will rattle him, not some well-timed zinger and sure-as-hell not fact-checking him in real time.

If there’s any doubt that Trump expects her to fight, consider what his contemporary, Newt Gingrich, said. “I assume she’ll come in very, very aggressive, and she will try to bait him, getting very angry, and she’ll be personal and try to demean him,” the former speaker told Politico.

Because Harris is the presumed aggressor, Gingrich hopes Trump will rise above and “be a guy who’s been a real president — while she has been kind of a semi-vice president — and a guy who knows all the world leaders, and a guy who has been through an enormous amount, and just be calm and steady and stick to the real differences.”

Stick to policy, in other words.

But Trump abandoned policy long ago. There’s nothing left but personal attacks, grievances and belly-aching. He wants to fight, because he needs to. Everything depends on appearing dominant.

If Harris deprives him of that, he’s got nothing.