Kamala Harris was arguably pressured into releasing some policy proposals, and to say it didn't go well is an understatement. Even her allies in the liberal media trashed her Soviet-style solutions to problems created by her own administration. Now, I think it's safe to say that we're not going to get anything substantive from Kamala or her campaign again.
After weeks of avoiding any sort of policy proposal, the Harris-Walz campaign first copied the Trump campaign's "No Tax on Tips" idea, which was a rather gutless move that clearly didn't satisfy those who wanted something more. On Friday, she rolled out the keystones of her economic policy, which included Soviet-style price controls and down payment assistance for new homeowners—both of which have been criticized from the left.
Her housing plan, which includes $25,000 in down payment assistance for first-time home buyers, was panned in a Washington Post editorial because it "risks putting upward pressure on prices." Even an Obama economist trashed Kamala's federal ban on price-gouging. "This is not sensible policy, and I think the biggest hope is that it ends up being a lot of rhetoric and no reality," Jason Furman, the former National Economic Council chair under Obama, told The New York Times. "There’s no upside here, and there is some downside." Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell also wrote that it is "hard to exaggerate how bad Kamala Harris’s price-gouging proposal is." Even CNN admitted in an article that "Harris’ proposal could create more problems than the one it’s trying to solve."
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This is the kind of criticism and accountability that the Harris-Walz campaign has been trying hard to avoid. They want to run on vibes, not ideas, because the ideas they want are so bad that even their biggest allies can't help but trash them.
So don't expect many more details about Kamala's vision for America going forward.
In fact, Democrats want her to shut up.
“She doesn’t need to negotiate against herself. We’ve got the biggest possible tent right now,” Rep. Ann McLane Kuster (D-N.H.), chair of the so-called centrist New Democrats, told Politico. “I don’t think there’s a real strong reason for her to try to weed out any points of view right now.”
And Politico suggests that this is a wise strategy for her.
"It’s an advantageous but incredibly rare position for any presidential nominee," the outlet writes. "Harris skipped the typically policy-heavy competitive primary process, despite not being an incumbent president, due to Biden’s late dropout."
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That said, Politico acknowledges that this strategy comes with the risk of allowing Trump and Republicans to define Harris.
Her own party is hesitant to demand any policy goals that could blunt her momentum, but it’s still a risky strategy. Republicans have repeatedly brought up her more liberal positions from the 2020 presidential primary as they try to paint her as an out-of-touch progressive, an approach they’ll almost certainly continue into November.
You think?
While Republicans will certainly seek to define Kamala by her radical-left positions, the Harris-Walz campaign has likely realized that the risk of keeping mum on the details of her policy positions is still the safer strategy. Just as we were told we had to pass Obamacare to find out what's in it, we're now being told we have to elect Kamala Harris to find out what she will do as president.
So, it's back to the basement.
