Last night I wrote my assessment of Kamala Harris' CNN interview as it was proceeding, so my published notes were more impression than analysis. In that vein, I wrote toward the end of the post that "I'm going to hold off" on commenting about Dana Bash's lead-in question, "Voters are eager to hear what you'll do" policy-wise, adding that I'll address that matter in the morning. My apologies, I'm a little late.
My reason for postponing remarks was that an hour before the interview aired I was looking at the results of a newly released Wall Street Journal poll. And what I found then brought forth a chuckle a bit later, when hearing the question posed by Bash. But time pressures preventing me from going into it "live."
In her query, the CNN anchor was repeating what the media has been criticizing for weeks: You, candidate Harris, have been far too vague about the policies you've proposed, and so voters are eager to hear more; indeed they're demanding to hear more.
Pop quiz: What that true or false? It's the latter, decisively. The Journal's polling discovered that only 15% of voters believe they know too little.
So much for Dana Bash and the entire press corps' opinion of public opinion. But in this particular arena, the media in general has been fundamentally flawed in another way — a more egregious, and much less forgivable, way.
As noted, its principal criticism of Kamala Harris has been the indistinctness of her proposed policies, which, it is true, she laid out in only a broad fashion roughly a month ago. Yet ... let's see ... oh yes, now I remember ... for precisely 236 years presidential candidates have campaigned on indistinct policies. That Harris has been unique in her presentations is sheer humbug.
I should qualify the above. Presidential candidates who won their elections campaigned on vague, indistinct policies. Where Democratic candidates have too often gone wrong is in presenting specifics; heaps of them, policy details that voters neither cared about nor understood. Although the media is quite aware of both phenomena, it nevertheless bangs away, demanding to know more.
And that's OK, because that happens to be the political media's job. So in what way has its 2024 campaign coverage been egregiously flawed? And unforgivable to boot?
When was the last time you heard a political reporter press Trump on his policy proposals? For that matter, what policy proposals? The manner in which he promises voters an idyllic America is that he'll accomplish it. Period. And usually on Day One. It's magical — by repeatedly expanding and narrowing the distance between his hands he'll remake the United States into a goddamn garden of Eden. Such are Donald J. Trump's policy proposals.
And what does that political reporter do, after sitting and listening to this blowhard bullshit? He or she moves right along to the next question, which invariably has nothing whatsoever to do with policies. Trump has trained the media to do this. His training is packaged in the latest "outrage," which he knows the reporter is far keener to ask about. That sells.
Meanwhile, Kamala Harris' campaign days are filled with reporters demanding specifics about her presidential governance. After all, as Dana Bash said last night, voters are eager to hear more. They feel they just don't know enough about her policies to have a firm opinion of her.
And that's true — for 15% of voters.
Good grief, the mainstream media! They think they have their fingers on the pulse of the country just because they visit a few diners in the Midwest and only talk to old white people.
Dana Bash wasn't asking questions based on the "majority" of Americans. She based her questions on right wing criticisms of Harris, like all mainstream media interviewers do, and Harris, I believe, made clear she wasn't going to play their game.
Posted by: Anne J | August 30, 2024 at 01:43 PM
I think Dana Bash is a dismal failure on every level. I believe Ms. Harris deserved a better journalist than the likes of Bash.
Posted by: Anne Dillon | August 30, 2024 at 05:55 PM