We are in the home-stretch, folks.
And by all accounts, the race is neck-and-neck.
That’s certainly one takeaway from the polling, which has all the major battlegrounds tipping one way or the other … all within the margin of error … and all seem to flip back and forth on any given day.
But if you’ve watched the polling throughout the last two months, there has been a noticeable shift toward Trump over the last two-plus weeks. That’s why the NY Times’ data guru Nate Silver wrote today that his “gut” tells him Trump is going to win … although, apparently, his head isn’t there yet.
It’s also why unnamed Democrats confessed their fears today to The Hill:
“Everyone keeps saying, ‘It’s close.’ Yes, it’s close, but are things trending our way? No. And no one wants to openly admit that,” one Democratic strategist said. “Could we still win? Maybe. Should anyone be even slightly optimistic right now? No.”
I agree … they shouldn’t be “optimistic,” particularly given what we’ve seen in national polling over the last ten days. Trump hasn’t just pulled even and ahead in swing states, but he’s also registered leads in a few national polls. If “pet-eaters” wasn’t proof enough, we now know for certain that Trump enjoys absolute immunity.
And I doubt that Gen. John Kelly’s finally-on-the-record revelations about Trump’s fascist tendencies will move the needle. He's not only grabbed (and now praised) genitalia without consequence, but he's shown he can grab the third rail of Hitler without shocking himself or the conscience of his people.
And make no mistake, they are his people and he is their infallible demi-god. That's clear when you listen to his devotees explain away anything and everything he says and does. The cacophony of their collaboration is an echo reverberating through the dark canyon of history. It's also ironic that he's cemented his status as their infallible leader by praising history's most notorious example of dangerous infallibility.
That’s a daunting hill for Harris to climb, because his non-stop barrage of outrageousness demands a response. But, according the pollster Frank Luntz, it’s a trap:
“She’s had the best 60 days of any presidential candidate in modern history, and then the moment that she turned anti-Trump and focused on him and said, ‘Don’t vote for me, vote against him,’ … that’s when everything froze.”
Tonight's CNN-hosted town-hall event w/Kamala Harris is a made-to-order opportunity to give voters a good reason to vote for her … although I’d expect Trump’s fascist shadow to hang over the evening. I think it’s safe to assume she’ll be asked about Trump and it’s safe to assume she’ll emphasize the threat he poses. If nothing else, that’ll continue her team’s obvious attempt to peel off disaffected and disgusted Republicans.
Like Luntz, I am not convinced that hitting Trump will matter much. Particularly at this late date. Let Liz Cheney make that argument to nostalgic Reaganites.
Instead, she’s gotta give voter the one thing she still hasn’t given them ... direct answers.
IMHO, that's been her biggest weakness throughout the campaign.
She's asked "do you support x?" or "how would you handle y?" and then she launches into indirect, circuitous answers that wander through her biography and her "values" before finally ending up with the recitation of a carefully-crafted talking point.
It looks and sounds like she's avoiding the initial question. It also looks and sounds like she's afraid to reveal what she really thinks. And that makes her seem elusive and opaque.
Opacity is her enemy.
Every time she doesn't give a direct answer to a direct question she's passing up an opportunity to clearly define herself. That, in turn, hands that opportunity to her opponent. And they've used those opportunities to blunt her momentum.
In fact, they've built their momentum on Trump flooding the zone with self-defining answers and statements. Whatever we might think about what he says, there is nothing we can say about him that's worse than what he says about himself.
Tonight, she needs to reveal herself to the audience. She needs to at least appear to be answering "from her heart" (yes, I hate that phrase, but the American people set these parameters, not me). She does that when she talks about abortion rights. Now she needs to do that on all the other issues she’s been handling with a pair of asbestos gloves.
And when someone asks if they made a mistake at the border, she's gotta start with either a "yes" and a pseudo mea culpa that pivots to the border bill ... or a hard "no" that points out Trump enjoyed COVID restrictions that sunsetted on them and that's why we need Congress to act ... because, above all, we follow the Constitution … blah-blah-blah.
More important than the substance of the answer, though, is the certainty with which she delivers it. Answer “the ask” immediately and then move on to your pre-recorded message.
If, however, she starts stringing together various turns of phrase and empty platitudes with canned bits of biography, she'll persuade no one.
In fact, she'll probably reinforce the suspicions of the 1-3% of still-gettable fence-sitters ... like the independents and Hispanics she's been bleeding in recent polls.
Most importantly of all, she's gotta make some news tonight. If I was advising her, I'd play-up the pledge to add a Republican to my cabinet and/or talk-up that bipartisan advisory council she mentioned one time and then dropped. I'd talk about bringing together a team to tackle inflation and to secure the border. I might even propose a border czar. Something forceful. Something direct. Something that sounds like you're confident you're going to win ... like a "day one" agenda.
Let's face it ... time is running out ... and after tonight she'll only have one more chance to make a big impact through a media appearance ... that is if she manages to go on Joe Rogan's podcast.