AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin
Kamala Harris’ campaign is scrambling: Either her staff don’t know what they’re doing, or they’ve realized it’s Hail Mary time.
She’s agreed to an interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier, the first time she’s deigned to sit down with a reporter from a right-leaning outlet as the Democratic nominee — and after even CBS’s best efforts couldn’t save her from looking awful in a friendly-but-professional sitdown with Bill Whitaker.
(And she may still wind up looking worse if CBS does as it should, by releasing the full transcript.)
Even riskier, she’s reportedly in talks to guest on Joe Rogan’s mega-popular podcast, whose audience skews heavily male (and conservative) — and whose sitdowns typically run for hours.
Neither move would be notable for almost any other candidate: Donald Trump has been sitting down with opposing, even hostile, interviewers since he launched his campaign.
But Harris’ handlers have largely restricted her to rallies with teleprompters and crowds of supporters or sitdowns with friendly alt-media types who tee up easy questions with few follow-ups.
And no wonder: Every time she goes off-script or is pressed just a bit, she offers up complete gibberish, like her Monday ramble about “constellations” in response to Black Star Network host Roland Martin’s question on crime.
Not to mention her admission on “The View” that she wouldn’t have done anything differently from Joe Biden these last four years.
We have to think she and her advisers have decided she’s on course to lose, and decided they have to take some big risks if they’re going to turn the race around.
Maybe they’re looking at grim news from internal polling, when public polls show an essentially tied race, but with trends favoring Trump as we enter the final weeks.
And early voting, which tends to favor Democrats, is down 45% compared to the same point in 2020 — and Trump has a narrow lead among early voters in swing states, according to a recent Harvard CAPS/Harris poll.
She’s losing support among groups that Democrats have long had locked down, including black men and Hispanics.
Or maybe it’s more accurate to say that Trump is winning over significant numbers of these voters, who are fed up with Harris-Biden’s weak economy, brutal inflation, open borders and out-of-control crime.
After all, Harris’ policies on all these fronts are anything but “turn the page,” no matter how she says she cares deeply on every front (just as Biden did).
If we’re reading things right, Harris is smart to risk doing interviews “on dangerous ground”: She may falter, but if she can rise to the occasion, she can score with voters she actually needs if she’s to win.
All the “joy” with Steven Colbert and his ilk can’t achieve that.