Disagree, I don’t think she needs to deal with Fox at all. Treat them like the right wing propaganda machine they are. There would be absolutely zero impact to her not sitting for an interview with them. Any complaints by right wingers could be easily dealt with my just stating that she has decided to talk to legitimate news organizations.
I see it less as an attempt to squeeze out a few votes from Fox News viewers than to signal to some truly undecided voters (who don't watch Fox News) that she's willing to mix it up with hostile outlets.
It's admittedly not without risk....especially since last week was our first reminder in this truncated campaign that she's not good in question-and-answer interview settings. If she thought was winning, I'd probably advise her against it. But since recent campaign moves suggest she doesn't think she's winning, she needs to put out as many signals as she can to assuage her vulnerabilities with skeptical voters that may still be won over, and like it or not, being insufficiently prepared for the job is one of those perceived vulnerabilities.
She had a couple of major word salads on the "60 Minutes" interview and on "The View", when asked if she'd have done anything differently than Joe Biden and she responded, "I can't think of a single thing", and then spent most of the rest of the interview trying to walk that back. The Trump campaign quickly flooded the zone with ads with that soundbyte. Not sure it'll pack the same punch as "I was for it before I was against it" but she should have been prepared with a better answer to such an easy question.
Of all the questions the campaign should have anticipated and had her fully prepared for, that one should have been very high on the list given Biden's low approval rating.
I don't have that answer. The well-paid campaign handlers who prepped her for the interviews should have. Simply pointing out her 28% capital gains tax proposal versus Biden's proposed 40% would have been enough to get through a friendly interview on "The View".
"Of course I would have done some things differently, as I am my own person, but President Biden has done an amazing job dealing with the wreckage left by Donald Trump's presidency - the deaths from covid, the inflation caused by Trump's policies and inaction, and the very poor planning that Trump took in pulling out of Afghanistan. I'd like to think that the biggest thing I would have done differently is communicate a little more with the American people to explain how these terrible things happened, and who was responsible for them. Moving on to my plan to correct Trump's mistakes..."
Sending Obama out to scold black voters for being insufficiently motivated and releasing her medical records while nudging Trump to do the same. I can't see a campaign that believes they're winning doing either of those things three weeks before the election.
There is this idea that campaigns know exactly where the race is AND presumably where its going to be in the end.
But of course they dont. Their polling might be marginally better than public polling, but ultimately this is a close race and one would expect her to treat it like a race she could very well lose, even if her polling doesn't suggest that she's losing or even all that likely to lose.
She might lose, and Mark will look like a genius, as pessimists always do when things go poorly.
Releasing the records sounds like it's pretty standard, especially for the candidates who went against Trump. The Fox appearance, I'm not sold on, but one election twitter figure I follow mentioned that such a move is done from a position of strength with the base and an intent to expand the scope of her message. So it may very well indicate that she's holding up strong.
I do agree that Obama's recent comments don't covey any confidence.
I highly doubt that. Obama is a very effective communicator and campaigner. Months before this the Harris campaign was already utilizing Obama on online YouTube ads for fundraising. He's very effective in mobilizing and convincing people. Heck he convinced me to donate to the Harris campaign so there's that. At worst she's just hedging her bets, which I expect any competent campaign to do.
I think you have to be looking for signs of doom in order to interpret either of those actions as anything other than normal campaign moves in a competitive race. I would expect those from her in pretty much any circumstances, even if she had data showing Utah was a swing state.
Obama was always going to campaign for Harris. He’s the most popular living former president, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the Harris team had data showing he would be most effective with black men. There may be data showing she has a problem with that segment of the vote, but that does not imply she thinks she is losing.
And isn’t it customary to release health records? When your opponent is the oldest presidential candidate in history, showing pretty obvious signs of mental decline, is borderline obese with a horrible diet and refuses to release his medical records it would be political negligence not to try to make it an issue.
With respect to those struggling with their weight, ain't nothing borderline about it. I do think Democrats could have made a few more attacks on Trump's age and health, given that Republicans had managed to weaponize that so thoroughly against Biden.
If Democrats were given the same leeway as Republicans, that would be true. Unfortunately we are not, not to mention they can throw "you guys nominated old Biden" back in our faces. Yes, Biden left the race and Harris took over, but he was chosen by Democratic Party voters. She was not.
We aren't given the same leeway, but perhaps we can try and take it every now and then. The Republicans and the media established clearly that "old and feeble" is bad. Trump is old, and his many insane rants can be presented in a way that speaks to dementia, rather than just megalomania (since many voters generally don't seem to have a problem with megalomania).
I don't think we can gleam anything from that one way or the other.
A well run campaign should seek to improve where they think they can, even if they believe they are on the path to an easy victory. If the actions come with large risks, or are preternaturally safe, then we can maybe use that as insight into the state of the race from the campaign's view. More so the former than the latter.
In this case neither strikes me as meaningfully risky. The risks are primarily opportunity cost: maybe that time could be better spent elsewhere.
That's not to say that everything is necessarily honky dory. I don't know either way. Just my take that these actions do not inform us that things are bad or trending bad.
You gotta deal with the media landscape you have, not the media landscape you may wish you had.
Disagree, I don’t think she needs to deal with Fox at all. Treat them like the right wing propaganda machine they are. There would be absolutely zero impact to her not sitting for an interview with them. Any complaints by right wingers could be easily dealt with my just stating that she has decided to talk to legitimate news organizations.
I see it less as an attempt to squeeze out a few votes from Fox News viewers than to signal to some truly undecided voters (who don't watch Fox News) that she's willing to mix it up with hostile outlets.
It's admittedly not without risk....especially since last week was our first reminder in this truncated campaign that she's not good in question-and-answer interview settings. If she thought was winning, I'd probably advise her against it. But since recent campaign moves suggest she doesn't think she's winning, she needs to put out as many signals as she can to assuage her vulnerabilities with skeptical voters that may still be won over, and like it or not, being insufficiently prepared for the job is one of those perceived vulnerabilities.
I guess I didn't see the interview you're referring to. Which questions did she flub?
She had a couple of major word salads on the "60 Minutes" interview and on "The View", when asked if she'd have done anything differently than Joe Biden and she responded, "I can't think of a single thing", and then spent most of the rest of the interview trying to walk that back. The Trump campaign quickly flooded the zone with ads with that soundbyte. Not sure it'll pack the same punch as "I was for it before I was against it" but she should have been prepared with a better answer to such an easy question.
What answer, though? She's VP. I don't see what else she could have said.
Of all the questions the campaign should have anticipated and had her fully prepared for, that one should have been very high on the list given Biden's low approval rating.
And what should or could she have said?
I don't have that answer. The well-paid campaign handlers who prepped her for the interviews should have. Simply pointing out her 28% capital gains tax proposal versus Biden's proposed 40% would have been enough to get through a friendly interview on "The View".
"Of course I would have done some things differently, as I am my own person, but President Biden has done an amazing job dealing with the wreckage left by Donald Trump's presidency - the deaths from covid, the inflation caused by Trump's policies and inaction, and the very poor planning that Trump took in pulling out of Afghanistan. I'd like to think that the biggest thing I would have done differently is communicate a little more with the American people to explain how these terrible things happened, and who was responsible for them. Moving on to my plan to correct Trump's mistakes..."
Oops....she said "there's not one thing that comes to mind" rather than the quote I said.
What campaign moves has she made that make you think she thinks she’s losing?
Sending Obama out to scold black voters for being insufficiently motivated and releasing her medical records while nudging Trump to do the same. I can't see a campaign that believes they're winning doing either of those things three weeks before the election.
I can, if they believe they're leading but not securely.
There is this idea that campaigns know exactly where the race is AND presumably where its going to be in the end.
But of course they dont. Their polling might be marginally better than public polling, but ultimately this is a close race and one would expect her to treat it like a race she could very well lose, even if her polling doesn't suggest that she's losing or even all that likely to lose.
She might lose, and Mark will look like a genius, as pessimists always do when things go poorly.
Releasing the records sounds like it's pretty standard, especially for the candidates who went against Trump. The Fox appearance, I'm not sold on, but one election twitter figure I follow mentioned that such a move is done from a position of strength with the base and an intent to expand the scope of her message. So it may very well indicate that she's holding up strong.
I do agree that Obama's recent comments don't covey any confidence.
I think it's a sign of strength(shocking that I think Mark is wrong; we shall see soon enough)
The Fox appearance to me exudes confidence, Obama’s comments the precise opposite. Do something for both the optimists and the pessimists, there.
Medical records stuff is so utterly small ball that it’s not even worth analyzing.
I highly doubt that. Obama is a very effective communicator and campaigner. Months before this the Harris campaign was already utilizing Obama on online YouTube ads for fundraising. He's very effective in mobilizing and convincing people. Heck he convinced me to donate to the Harris campaign so there's that. At worst she's just hedging her bets, which I expect any competent campaign to do.
It's called, 'touching all the bases'
I think you have to be looking for signs of doom in order to interpret either of those actions as anything other than normal campaign moves in a competitive race. I would expect those from her in pretty much any circumstances, even if she had data showing Utah was a swing state.
Obama was always going to campaign for Harris. He’s the most popular living former president, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the Harris team had data showing he would be most effective with black men. There may be data showing she has a problem with that segment of the vote, but that does not imply she thinks she is losing.
And isn’t it customary to release health records? When your opponent is the oldest presidential candidate in history, showing pretty obvious signs of mental decline, is borderline obese with a horrible diet and refuses to release his medical records it would be political negligence not to try to make it an issue.
With respect to those struggling with their weight, ain't nothing borderline about it. I do think Democrats could have made a few more attacks on Trump's age and health, given that Republicans had managed to weaponize that so thoroughly against Biden.
If Democrats were given the same leeway as Republicans, that would be true. Unfortunately we are not, not to mention they can throw "you guys nominated old Biden" back in our faces. Yes, Biden left the race and Harris took over, but he was chosen by Democratic Party voters. She was not.
We aren't given the same leeway, but perhaps we can try and take it every now and then. The Republicans and the media established clearly that "old and feeble" is bad. Trump is old, and his many insane rants can be presented in a way that speaks to dementia, rather than just megalomania (since many voters generally don't seem to have a problem with megalomania).
Shouldn't campaigns do everything they can to win, every time, and not just when they're behind?
I don't think we can gleam anything from that one way or the other.
A well run campaign should seek to improve where they think they can, even if they believe they are on the path to an easy victory. If the actions come with large risks, or are preternaturally safe, then we can maybe use that as insight into the state of the race from the campaign's view. More so the former than the latter.
In this case neither strikes me as meaningfully risky. The risks are primarily opportunity cost: maybe that time could be better spent elsewhere.
That's not to say that everything is necessarily honky dory. I don't know either way. Just my take that these actions do not inform us that things are bad or trending bad.