NBC News has the story about the Harris camp's plans to do more interviews and boy is this interesting. In fact, there's probably a whole blog post worth of material in the opening sentence.
Fresh off a debate they thought went well for her, Vice President Kamala Harris’ aides are slowly opening up more engagement for her with the media, amid growing concern among allies that she needs to be more accessible, but have no plans to fundamentally alter their strategy.
Her aides are slowly opening up more engagement for her. Isn't that interesting? It sort of paints a picture of a campaign in which the aides are making the decisions rather than the candidate. I mean, this sentence could have been framed very differently: 'Feeling good after her debate performance, Kamala Harris has decided to take on more interviews.' But it doesn't say that.
Also, we learn the reason for this shift, which is "growing concern among allies that she needs to be more accessible." In other words, it's not pressure from conservative critics that is driving this. The pressure is coming from other Democrats.
And then the the sentence ends with a kind of line being drawn. The aides running things "have no plans to fundamentally alter their strategy." In other words, don't get your hopes up too much. Are you ready to be disappointed?
The campaign said Harris plans to do more interviews with local media in battleground states and speak more with her traveling press corps in the coming days. She will also take questions from members of the National Association of Black Journalists, with whom former President Donald Trump sat for a contentious interview this summer.
So one softball interview and some local media hits. No national interviews are on the agenda. Not at this time and probably not at all if they can avoid it. Even NBC News can see what is going on here.
Her campaign’s media strategy has largely been a continuation of Biden’s, which is to minimize interactions with the media. It’s a risk-averse approach that maximizes control but limits public access and opens her to criticism that she has something to hide or can’t handle unscripted questions.
This is still the Joe Biden basement campaign strategy. As I've said before the specific type of incompetence the campaign is trying to hide has changed since Biden was replaced by Harris, but the strategy is the same. One anonymous Democratic consultant offered the best summary of the Harris campaign's main problem.
“I don’t think you can hide for 56 more days from media interviews,” said one Democratic strategist, requesting anonymity to speak candidly. “The biggest issues with her are because people still don’t know enough about her. It’s going to take a lot more than one debate and one CNN interview to scratch the itch,” the strategist said, adding, “Voters want to know whom they’re going to vote for and what they stand for and want to see them tested. It’s a dangerous strategy of trying to do four-corners defense when there’s still a lot of clock left in the game.”
Since Biden pulled out of the race, Trump has given 18 media interviews and JD Vance has given 44. Meanwhile, Kamala Harris has given one joint interview and Tim Walz has given three (the joint interview with Harris and two quick hits after the debate). That's 62 GOP interviews to 3 Dem interviews. Do you think this might be a bigger story if the numbers were reversed? I do.
“Could you imagine if we had a candidate we couldn’t even put on Fox?” said one Republican consultant, who was not authorized to speak publicly, noting Harris has not yet sat for interviews with prominent left-leaning TV hosts.
Seriously, how bad do things have to be that they won't let Harris go on Joy Reid's show or Morning Joe. You couldn't ask for more of a sure thing than being interviewed by those hacks. And yet, they "have no plans to fundamentally alter their strategy." Even James Carville, who often tells it like it is, texted NBC News to say he didn't think more interviews were "necessary." I think that's code for it's a bad idea.
I think the Harris campaign is going with local interviews because her aides see them as the B-team, i.e. less likely to ask embarrassing questions that stump her and more likely to be overwhelmed by the celebrity aspect of interviewing a presidential candidate. I hope they are wrong about that. I have respect for a lot of local news reporters out there who routinely cover topics the national media has already decided are outside the acceptable narrative. So I wouldn't be surprised if a few of them rise to the occasion and ask Harris some tough questions about her plans or her litany of flip-flops on issues. Not all of them, of course. There are hack reporters at every level, but there are some good ones too. Fingers crossed she gets an unpleasant surprise in one of these upcoming interviews.
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