Breaking News:The Clock Is Ticking on Kamala Harris
The event was explicitly aimed at those moderates and onetime Republicans who remain up for grabs, and may decide the election, but the rhetoric seemed better suited for those in the audience wearing “The Lincoln Project” and “,LA” t-shirts.
The political odd couple criticized former President Donald Trump’s lack of decency, his disregard for the Constitution and rule of law, and asked those in attendance to imagine him without guardrails. Our allies abroad, they said, were nervous. And, of course, there was a detailed recounting of what Trump did (and didn’t do) on January 6.
Those are all profoundly serious issues and are part of the reason why the race, in an otherwise turbulent year for Democrats, remains competitive. But reams of voting results and research indicate those issues long ago pushed so many people away from Trump’s GOP. They are not what animates that small number of people who remain undecided in the second-to-last week of October. What new voters are being won with denunciations of Donald Trump’s character
The discussion here was backward-looking and Trump-focused. It was, in short, all about yesterday and him rather than tomorrow and her.
And not for a lack of opportunity.
The evening’s moderator, Wisconsin conservative talk show host turned anti-Trump writer Charlie Sykes, opened with the political equivalent of a fastball down the middle of the plate.
Perched beneath a “Country Over Party sign,” Sykes asked Harris for her pitch to the voter who supported Republicans from yesteryear but are uneasy now about casting a ballot for a Democrat.
The vice president began by citing “the lived experience” of most Americans — sounding more like a graduate student from down the road in Madison than most Americans — of having much in common.
She repeated a line from her stump speech about how Americans “love our country” before praising democracy, the rule of law and the Constitution. Then, making a little progress, she invoked her service on the Senate Intelligence Committee, where lawmakers from both parties put aside partisanship to focus on protecting the “security and well-being” of all Americans. That, Harris concluded.
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