CrimsonPhantom
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RE: Kamala Campaign in Panic Mode Ahead of Debate
Kamala team fears debate rules like muted mics will ‘handcuff’ her, as they scramble to rewrite playbook
Quote:Vice President Kamala Harris' team is adjusting to the upcoming debate format after failing to secure rule changes they had hoped for, including removing the muted microphones which they believe will “handcuff” her against Donald Trump.
In the debates between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, the Trump team agreed to several rules set by Biden's team, such as having no audience members present and using muted microphones to prevent interruptions. For the upcoming debate, Harris’ team aimed to change these previously established rules, particularly pushing for unmuted microphones so that Harris could leverage her prosecutorial background to confront Trump directly, similar to her approach during Senate hearings, according to Politico.
Now, Harris' team is concerned that she will be "handcuffed" by the rules. “Trump’s worst moments in the debates are when he gets upset and snaps,” said an aide from Harris' 2020 campaign, per the outlet. “And they have neutered that.”
Harris' strategy seems to have been to replicate the "gotcha" moments she previously created, like during the 2020 vice-presidential debate against Mike Pence, where she responded to an interruption in a seemingly premeditated fashion by saying, "I am speaking," which could frame Pence as condescending towards a female opponent.
Some Democratic officials, however, have dismissed the concerns raised by Harris' campaign, suggesting they might be setting low expectations to help her perform well. Former Barack Obama adviser David Axelrod noted that these complaints could also serve to "get into Trump's head."
“What the [Harris] team is saying is that Trump’s campaign does not trust him to control himself,” Axelrod said. “I don’t think Trump likes to be depicted as someone being handled, so I do think there’s an element of trying to psych-out their side, too.”
Despite concerns from the Harris campaign, Trump adviser Jason Miller expressed satisfaction with Harris' team for “finally accepting the already agreed-upon rules of the debate that they wrote in the first place.”
“Americans want to hear both candidates present their competing visions to the voters, unburdened by what has been. No notes, no sitting down, no advance copies of the questions,” Miller added.
'Highly Choreographed' Practices, a Trump Impersonator and Replica TV Lights: Inside Kamala's Debate Prep
Quote:Vice President Kamala Harris is preparing for the big Tuesday night debate with Donald Trump by holing up in a Pittsburgh hotel where she’s had to “go back to the drawing board” on her strategy because she was unsuccessful in trying to get the rules changed and have open mics. Her plan had been to constantly interrupt and challenge Trump and get him off his game, but now she’s going to have to deal with the rules as they were originally agreed to by Joe Biden when he was the candidate.
She’s cramming as hard as she can and even working with a Trump impersonator:
Vice President Kamala Harris is holed up for five days in a Pittsburgh hotel, doing highly choreographed debate practice sessions before Tuesday night’s clash. There’s a stage and replica TV lighting and an adviser in full Lee Strasberg method-acting mode, not just playing Donald Trump but inhabiting him, wearing a boxy suit and a long tie.
If you’re wondering, the faux Trump—a guy named Philippe Reines—revealed one thing he didn’t do when he played him in the past: “I dressed up like him, but I didn’t put on an orange face or a wig.”
Harris wants to come across as someone with gravitas:
Bringing out Trump’s most self-destructive instincts is a priority for Harris, as is coming across as coolheaded and presidential.
“She should not be baited, she should bait him,” Hillary Clinton, the last woman to debate Trump, said in an interview Thursday. “When I said he was a Russian puppet, he just sputtered onstage. I think that’s an example of how you get out a fact about him that really unnerves him.”
Kamala should definitely take advice from Hillary Clinton, seeing as the former Secretary of State lost to Trump in 2016.
Whether she can pull it off or not, we’ll just have to wait and see, but the Democrat nominee who has never won a single primary delegate does have a plan:
Unlike Biden, she has not focused squarely on portraying the former president as a fundamental threat to American democracy. She has tried to minimize him as a stale old act who is repeating his same tired playbook. And she has painted him as a rich guy who cares only about helping other rich guys — a populist line of attack that resonates with voters in focus groups.
Harris has also ditched Clinton’s unsuccessful strategy of denouncing Trump as a racist and a misogynist. The vice president’s aides believe it’s a waste of time to tell voters what a terrible person Trump is, given how hard it is to find a voter who does not already have a fixed view of his character — good or bad. Instead, Harris is trying to connect with the thin slice of undecided voters who feel sour about the economy and worried about the future, and who want to hear what each candidate will do to improve their lives. [Emphasis mine.]
How on earth is she going "to connect with the thin slice of undecided voters who feel sour about the economy and worried about the future?" She's been second in command for the last three and a half years and has overseen the conditions that have them feeling that way in the first place.
I’m sure her team will be hoping she puts on a more believable performance than this one:
The stakes are high in this gabfest. If either one of them stumbles, it could be the difference in this hotly-contested election. Of course, we all know that if Kamala gets through it without falling down, the media will portray it as a massively massive, humongous win for the VP—but what the voters think will be the important thing.
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