Democrats this past week in Chicago seemed to pull off what they sought to accomplish: unite the Democratic Party, drown out the progressive wing of the party and emphasize a more centrist-y posture in a bid to reach undecided voters.
They also managed to keep Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris from having to answer any questions about her policy views or without the aid of a teleprompter.
Yes, over a month after the decision was apparently made that Harris would be the Democratic successor to President Joe Biden — still hadn’t talked to the press. Instead, her campaign staffers have been telling reporters what she now thinks and she’s said whatever she’s said in campaign rallies.
Of course, many know why this might be: Kamala Harris, unscripted, has a tendency to generate word salads when she speaks. Not quite as bad as former president Donald Trump, to be sure, but pretty close.
Plus, it’s clear Harris is still figuring out what she’s supposed to say she thinks. After all, Harris has dramatically reversed herself on key issues since her first run for president just four years ago. This includes progressive stands on Medicare for All, immigration enforcement and fracking, which she’s apparently walked back. But even on her own speaking terms — like her speech on Thursday — she tends to generate a whole lot of what one could call misinformation.
Fact checkers at the BBC of all places pointed out she was misleading listeners when she said Trump planned a national ban on abortion or planned to “limit access to birth control.”
The New York Times likewise pointed out Harris was misleading when she claimed Trump planned to cut taxes for billionaires and that doing so would reduce federal revenue by $5 trillion over a decade. What Harris left out is that the $4.6 trillion estimate pertains to extending the Trump tax cuts for all Americans, not just the very wealthy. Middle-income Americans, the Times noted, benefit from lower tax rates and a larger standard deduction.
But why let facts get in the way of a political narrative?
In any case, the race for the White House is now on. The only regrettable thing is that the two big parties in the United States couldn’t come up with better candidates.
