9/12/24

HER DEBATE SUCCESS PREVIEWS HOW SMARTLY HARRIS WOULD GOVERN

I DREADED TUESDAY NIGHT’S DEBATE. I'm not apologizing, since Democrats worry a lot - and we have our reasons.
     As it turned out, the debate was unquestionably a win for Kamala Harris. As for Donald Trump, except for of his loss  to Joe Biden in 2020, the debate  was his worst humiliation since his assault on our politics  began nine years ago.
     Harris's debate triumph was followed by an endorsement by Taylor Swift, perhaps the world's most popular singer, whose potential influence is limited only by the fact that some of her fans are too young to vote.
     The irony of this double-header win is that it remains unclear whether Harris will carry the Nov. 5 election.
     In part, this is due to the tenacious, supernatural force with which Trump holds tens of millions of voters.
     And it's also because Trump has eluded the kind of justice found mainly in old comic books and Western movies, wherein the villain always gets what's coming to him - at least being sent directly to home confinement without passing Go.
       But Trump persists like Long Covid. The polls say the election, which is now just weeks -  not months – away, is close. Maybe the polls are right.  Or maybe they're missing the lurking landslide that favors one side or the other.
  What's for sure is  that if Harris hadn’t pulled off a spectacular performance - some observers called it unprecedented in the history of presidential debates -  her campaign likely would have stalled and failed.
     Instead, she's holding her position in the race, and maybe  has even increased the momentum that's defined her campaign since July 21, when she replaced President Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee, quickly named Tim Walz as her folk-hero running mate and then stage-managed a joyous Democratic National Convention.

AS LAST NIGHT’S DEBATE ENDED,  I, and maybe lots of other Worrier Democrats, realized our  fears were unfounded: she hadn't fallen flat on her face or started speaking in tongues.
      But what had happened?
      If you’d asked me immediately what I thought, I would have been at a loss. That happens sometimes when I watch a sports event, go to a concert, see a movie. It takes time – a long time - to even remember what what happened.
     I did feel a tinge of disappointment that Harris had not delivered the “knockout” blow so many people yearn for. Of course, those single, defining moments are rare – Biden’s horrific failure in his June debate with Trump being one of the exceptions.
     But I knew after the Harris-Trump debate that something had happened - something big -  as if  a powerful  hurricane had swept into America's living rooms and, just as suddenly disappeared.
     I like to think that when I witness something, I don’t need Big Media's analysts and pundits to tell me what I just experienced. But this time, the Know-It-Alls helped explain some of what happened.

     TAKE THE OPENING MOMENT. I didn’t make much of it when I saw Harris walk across the stage and force Trump to shake hands.
     But some pundits pointed out that was the moment  Harris took charge. From the start, Harris forced Trump to say things and act in ways he shouldn't. From the start, she mostly controlled the proceedings.
     The Commentariate also pointed out how Harris repeatedly lured Trump into a variety of traps that forced his lizard-brain to show himself at his true worst.
     An example was when Harris  suggested that voters drop into one of Trump's rallies. Here's what she said, according to the ABC News transcript:   

  I'm going to actually do something really unusual and I'm going to invite you to attend one of Donald Trump's rallies because it's a really interesting thing to watch.
     You will see during the course of his rallies he talks about fictional characters like Hannibal Lecter. He will talk about (how) windmills cause cancer.   
     And what you will also notice is that people start leaving his rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom.
     And I will tell you the one thing you will not hear him talk about is you. You will not hear him talk about your needs, your dreams, and your, your desires.  And I'll tell you, I believe you deserve a president who actually puts you first. And I pledge to you that I will.    

      For Trump, anyone, but  especially a woman, moreover, a person of  color, making fun of his  rallies is probably the severest insult imaginable, worse than the cruel nicknames, profane and racial slurs in which he specializes. And it set off a torrent of boasts, exaggerations, lies and fantasies.
     Trump said:    

     First, let me respond as to the rallies. She said people start leaving. People don't go to her rallies. There's no reason to go. And the people that do go, she's busing them in and paying them to be there. And then showing them in a different light. So, she can't talk about that.
     People don't leave my rallies. We have the biggest rallies, the most incredible rallies in the history of politics. That's because people want to take their country back. Our country is being lost.
     We're a failing nation. And it happened three and a half years ago. And what, what's going on here, you're going to end up in World War III, just to go into another subject.
     What they have done to our country by allowing these millions and millions of people to come into our country. And look at what's happening to the towns all over the United States.
     And a lot of towns don't want to talk -- not going to be Aurora or Springfield. A lot of towns don't want to talk about it because they're so embarrassed by it. In Springfield, they're eating the dogs. The people that came in. They're eating the cats. They're eating -- they're eating the pets of the people that live there.
     And this is what's happening in our country. And it's a shame. As far as rallies are concerned, as far -- the reason they go is they like what I say. They want to bring our country back. They want to make America great again. It's a very simple phrase. Make America great again. She's destroying this country. And if she becomes president, this country doesn't have a chance of success. Not only success. We'll end up being Venezuela on steroids.    

     Really, if you had just dropped in from Mars and wanted to know what on Earth was causing so much fuss, that exchange was about all you needed to decide the differences between Harris and Trump.
      And, of course, what the visitors from outer space could see with their 16 eyes on the split TV screen was just as important as what they heard with their giant ears protruding from their foreheads:
      On their left, a scowling, menacing Trump; on their right,   a skeptical, sometimes radiant Harris. 

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 ONE OF THE SEVERAL HUNDRED things I had worried about before the debate was whether Harris would show up over-prepared.
       I had read that she'd holed-up in a Pennsylvania hotel for days, practicing in a studio-like space, going through all the possible scenarios, so she wouldn’t be caught off guard by Trump’s insults and showmanship or by an actual surprise question from a debate moderator.
        Biden had over-prepared in June, and it’s reasonable to think that the sheer volume of materials muddled his already over-taxed mind.
        But Harris was once a prosecutor, comfortable with the advanced work that goes into knowing the facts and details of a case, as well as being prepared  for the unexpected drama of the courtroom.
      So her methodical advance work paid off, and she arrived as a walking, talking, breathing briefing book.
     I doubt anything Kamala Harris said Tuesday night was spontaneous or unrehearsed.
       Did that  make her “inauthentic?”
       Absolutely not.
     The presidency is an impossible job, almost as daunting as the challenges that a candidate faces in accomplishing the trillion or so things that the experts demand that she “must do” in a single 90-minute debate.
       The kind of person we want in the Oval Office is someone who will do everything that they humanly can to perform at their very best. And that’s what Kamala Harris demonstrated in Tuesday's debate.
      The debate may or may not change the course of the election.
     But surely the debate showcased the stark choices in this election:
     A terrifying, wacko and inept president.
     An inspiring, rational and capable president.