Less than a month before the elections, one of the closest in US history, the Democratic presidential candidate, Kamala Harris, exhausted a schedule of interviews with non-traditional media to get closer to voters who still do not know her. totally, including Latinos.
The Democratic candidate silenced complaints that she did not give interviews with a marathon of appearances: on the ‘Call Her Daddy’ podcast, the late shows of Stephen Colbert and Howard Stern, the morning show ‘The View’ and in a meeting with Latino voters on Univision.
Harris also submitted to questions in a more traditional journalistic format on 60 Minutes, an interview that the Republican candidate, former President Donald Trump, rejected, according to the program.
Harris has been immersed in a short time in an unplanned electoral campaign in which she went from supporting President Joe Biden’s government proposals with a view to his re-election as a running mate, to being the protagonist of what has become a close race in which the vice president has had to appear before the Americans.
Harris, who does not have children of her own, said on the popular ‘Call Her Daddy’ podcast, followed by Generation Z and millennial women, that she loves her husband’s children, Doug, as her own and recalled that a family “has many forms. “I think more and more, we all understand that this is not the 1950s anymore.”
He also went to the traditional ’60 Minutes’ on CBS where he surprised many by saying that he has a gun and that he has used it in shooting practice, a possible nod to more conservative voters who do not agree with Trump.
Some of the critics on television shows and opinion columns considered Harris’ “media blitz” a “missed opportunity,” as columnist Alexander Nazaryan noted this Sunday on MSNBC.
Alex Shephard in an article in New Republic highlighted the difficulties that Harris has in defining herself, with changes in direction, after having emerged from an unexpected process with Biden’s resignation from re-election less than four months before the November 5 elections, while Michael Bender, in the New York Times, lamented that the vice president “responds to uncomfortable questions by acknowledging them, not always answering them.”
One of the main criticisms was for his response on ABC’s ‘The View’ morning show about what he would have done differently to President Joe Biden. “Nothing comes to mind,” he replied. A little later he said in this regard that he would have appointed a Republican to his cabinet.
«It is not an easy question, given that Harris is still serving Biden. But it is also clear that she needs to put some distance between her and Biden,” indicated The Washington Post.
The Hill noted that Harris’ response on 60 Minutes about how she would pay for the tax credits that are a central part of her economic plan was hesitant, as was her explanation of why she has changed her position on several issues. such as hydraulic fracturing, vital to attracting the vote in Pennsylvania.
Harris attributed these changes in position to the fact that they are a result of the experiences she has had “traveling through our country” as vice president. The newspaper recalled that Trump has also changed his mind regarding abortion, a central issue in this year’s campaign.
According to The New York Times, voters do not accept evasions well and cites among the examples that on ’60 Minutes’ she did not answer whether she considered the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, a close ally and that instead, she reformulated the question, which he then answered.
David Axelrod, former strategist for President Barack Obama, who had urged her to interact more with the media, praised her performance. “Most candidates hone those skills during primary campaigns,” which Harris did not, who “was thrown into to the bottom of the deepest pool that exists 90 days before a general election.
Despite the criticism, this marathon of interventions has shown Harris to tens of millions of Americans, many of them people not involved in the day-to-day political news, less than a month before the elections.
Furthermore, his appearances contrast with Trump’s media strategy, who has a meeting with Latino voters next week with Univision, but who, in general, has opted for interviews with related personalities or journalists and does not expose himself to questions with media that considered hostile. EFE
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