Harris Campaign Facing "Wall of Lava"
The Vice-President's first spin "in the barrel" result of unforced errors; race perceptibly tilts towards referendum on Biden/Harris economic record
Just a month ago -- as VP Kamala Harris was riding high after her debate with Donald Trump -- GOP consultant Mike Murphy appeared on Politico Playbook's Deep Dive podcast with Ryan Lizza to detail her then-bullish prospects.
Murphy, a Harris supporter, maintains a Hall of Fame list of GOP victories dating back to the 80s. He's also an incisive, objective analyst with an eye for metaphor, ability see around corners, and a reputation for laying down hard truths to clients and media listeners about how things can go wrong.
After pointing out to Lizza the danger of a Middle East crisis as a worrisome variable beyond a campaign’s immediate control, Murphy noted the elephant in the room: both sides’ data shows “the country wants to fire the Biden Administration over the economy.”
He said the Biden/Harris economic record was “a wall of lava” threatening her happy ending.
He also noted during the mid-September podcast that after her strong debate performance, expectations for Harris were unrealistically “sky-high” — with “nowhere to go but down.”
That was prescient.
If, Murphy said, she “has a gaffe, defines the campaign too much from an identity standpoint, let’s middle-class economics get out of her grip, can’t sell her ‘change’ message in a way people believe in — and Trump can re-frame with a sane offense with that wall of lava out there— he can still take this thing.”
While Harris and her team have intelligently and deftly avoided an “identity-based” campaign, her reputation for problematic media appearances is causing problems in a way that’s undermining her credibility on the “change” and “turn the page” front.
That’s a clinical way of saying she’s screwing things up with unforced errors.
The gaffe that contradicted Harris’s “New Way Forward” rationale
Of course, Harris can still win — anything can happen. But one can see and feel the instability roiling her campaign and her own self confidence.
If Harris goes on to lose, the almost inconceivable 10/8 gaffe on The View that landed VP Harris “inside the barrel” for the very first time — and is still tumbling — will be seen as a seminal turning point.
“There’s not a thing that comes to mind” Harris said wanly, briefly staring into space when asked if she’d have done anything different than Biden. The “New Way Forward” rationale was now out the window — and caught on video. Surely, she and her staff were prepared to offer several policy differentiations. But it never happened.
The result? That “Wall of Lava” inches closer as Harris embraces the Biden economic legacy while the heat of criticism and recriminations reverberate with the media and inside her campaign.
Yeah, but that’s just another faux media controversy, one might say.
Yet, after whiffing on The View, she went on Colbert several hours later for her mulligan. Asked the same question about how she’d be different, she screwed up again, saying she’s “not Joe Biden” and “not Donald Trump.”
It begs the question: Well then, who are you?
The Trump campaign and 3rd party GOP groups have been working overtime to fill in those blanks on her behalf — despite being outspent. While many in DC are oblivious to the advertising and messaging being aired in the battleground states, anyone streaming regional football on the weekends is receiving a heavy dose of both sides’ negative ads.
Trump is indeed getting hammered: he’s a wealthy, corrupt plutocrat — not on your side — contrasted with a “Harris plan” for the middle-class. It appears to be their best, most utilized message. It comports with Murphy’s and others’ view that she needs to be all about middle class economics.
Over the past couple of weeks, though, the Harris messages seem to be increasingly diffuse and varied. There’s been some reporting on this message diffusion, but this is anecdotal on my end — strictly what I’m seeing while streaming college and NFL football.
But one gets the impression — both from the advertising and out in the earned media — that Harris is starting to hurl an array of new charges to see what sticks. Her recent attempt to bait Trump on releasing medical records — along with saying Trump was “afraid” to appear on CBS’s 60 Minutes — was no sign of strength.
Spin the wheel, level a new charge at Trump. Not a good look.
The Trump advertising, conversely, seems heavily concentrated: trashing the Biden/Harris economic and immigration records. And its impossible not to notice a heavy dose of anti-transgender messaging.
On 10/2 the non-partisan Cook Political Report released its “swing state project” polling conducted by GOP and Democratic polling firms GS Strategy Group and Benenson Strategy Group, respectively.
The media coverage of the data was generally positive for Harris: while in the margin of error, she led by several points in a majority of the battleground states. Yet the overall head to head results were a bit more favorable to Harris than other public and private surveys about 10 days to 14 days ago — when there was a clear trend towards Trump closing the gap.
Nevertheless, a couple of discussion points about the bipartisan findings from GS Strategy Group’s Greg Strimple piqued my interest — and now, almost 2 weeks later — seem to be manifesting themselves negatively for Harris as she faces headwinds:
Overall, voters feel slightly better on inflation. However, subtle shifts are occurring among independents on economic measures as cracks are beginning to develop in the blue wall states that advantage the Trump campaign and should concern the Harris campaign. It’s an indication that Trump’s TV ads are working.
Undecided Voters – just two percent are undecided, but they are still enough to tip the election to Harris or Trump. Undecided voters will break for Trump if it’s a referendum on Harris’ liberal ideology and failed record on the economy, and break for Harris if it’s a referendum on Trump’s personality and behavior.
Objectively speaking the campaign appears to be increasingly a referendum on the Biden/Harris economic and immigration record. And it cannot go unnoticed that Harris is attempting to defensively repair a problem with African-American men. It’s an important and significant news story.
It admittedly took longer than I thought it would, but the Harris campaign has finally been smoked out of its minimal media engagement cocoon. They see the need for more media and public interaction — while accepting the associated risk — as key to helping voters “still open to Harris” cross the support threshold.
And this now includes an interview tomorrow with Brett Baier of Fox News — a supremely fair-minded journalist. But you can bet Baier won’t make the mistake others have made foregoing tough follow-ups.
The commentariat is already suggesting that Harris needs a Bill Clinton-like “Sister Soulja” moment to finally put some distance between herself and President Biden.
But that presumes Harris has the chops to pull it off. Let’s see what happens.
If she indeed uses tomorrow’s Fox News interview for a Sister Souljah gambit, she may indeed pull it off. But the odds she will mishandle a tough, new question — and make news in a manner that ends up as a net negative — is entirely possible.
There’s a reason Vice-President Harris’s experienced media handlers elected on the front end to keep her under wraps away from difficult questioning (and accept the multiple downsides): she’s inconsistent at best, doesn’t always convey certitude and confidence — and just not good at it.
Having watched her (relatively few) media appearances closely, I’ll go back to her first “major” media appearance on 9/14, right after the debate, with Philadelphia’s ABC-TV affiliate WPVI-TV. Her ten minute interview with news anchor Brian Taff demonstrated just how dangerous it was — and is — to put her out there.
But now there’s no choice.