Kamala Harris has a lot more work to do

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris chats with Whoopi Goldberg and other hosts on ABC's The View on Tuesday. AP

With less than a month until the November 5 election, Vice President Kamala Harris finds herself in an infuriating bind: journalists say she isn’t talking enough to the media – yet whenever she does, her remarks spark negative headlines.

In other words, she’s damned if she does, damned if she doesn’t.

It’s a difficulty that has bedevilled Ms Harris throughout her term in office, where an overly controlling Biden administration ensured her appearances were carefully scripted and infrequent.

When she was given more leeway to be spontaneous, Ms Harris’s comments were often taken out of context or detractors accused her of concocting “word salads” that were long on vocabulary but short on meaning.

Some of the criticism is fair: after becoming the Democratic nominee as President Joe Biden left the race in July, Ms Harris had done only three interviews by the end of September, avoiding them even as she was coronated at the Democratic National Convention.

Most Americans already know how they will vote next month, and the race remains deadlocked between Ms Harris and her Republican rival Donald Trump. An all-out war of words is under way to court the sliver of undecided voters who will determine the winner, particularly in swing states such as Michigan and Pennsylvania.

Whereas Mr Trump is a master at controlling media narratives and dominating news cycles with ludicrous claims that sap attention from rivals, Ms Harris is still trying to find her feet when it comes to making a sales pitch to America about why she should be in the White House. The pressing question for her now is whether she still has the time to do so.

Ms Harris is seeking to address the criticism that many Americans still don't know who she is with a media blitz this week that includes interviews with mainstream outlets, the popular Call Her Daddy podcast and The Howard Stern Show, among others, marking a sea change in the Vice President’s hitherto ginger forays into the media spotlight.

In a show that aired on Monday, Ms Harris was interviewed by 60 Minutes, an old-school American media institution that for more than half a century has spoken to almost every presidential candidate before an election. A notable exception is Mr Trump, who at the last minute chickened out of what would have been an in-depth conversation.

The interview was an opportunity for Ms Harris to lay out her vision for America on perhaps the biggest platform available to her between now and election day, and to regain some of the momentum that has drained from her campaign since the heady days of the DNC in Chicago in August.

Like anything in modern American politics, perceptions of how Ms Harris fared on 60 Minutes depend largely on one’s political leanings. Democrats thought she did a decent job of explaining her policies, while Mr Trump claimed “she literally had no idea what she was talking about”.

My own view is that her performances to date, including on 60 Minutes, have fallen short, except for last month’s debate against Mr Trump when the former prosecutor demolished the convicted felon who, frankly, appeared deranged.

Despite being in the public eye for most of her career, Ms Harris still lacks the vital skill of succinctly pressing her case. Unfair as it is, the US often is a racist and sexist country and as a woman of colour in a high-profile position, Ms Harris faces a level of scrutiny that Mr Trump – who lies, exaggerates and bloviates without compunction – is somehow able to dodge.

It reminds me of 2016, when Hillary Clinton was running for president against Mr Trump. She was so afraid of saying anything that might upset one focus group or another that her message failed to resonate.

Similarly, watching Ms Harris pick her way carefully through a sentence is akin to watching someone tip-toe across eggshells. Every step is carefully taken to avoid doing any damage.

Some may find it refreshing compared to Mr Trump’s demolition-ball approach to interviews, but Ms Harris’s overcautiousness and wordy, talking-point answers that offer little insight into her character won’t be satisfying for many voters looking for simple reassurances in a world beset with complicated problems.

Take the economy. In one or two sentences, Mr Trump can tell you how he is going to fix it (even though it’s doing well): He would deport undocumented migrants, drill more oil and slap tariffs on imported goods.

Those arguments might not make sense to economists, but his message is simple.

Mr Trump left the US economy in flames amid the Covid-19 pandemic, exploded the national debt and enshrined massive budget shortfalls into law with his tax cuts. Ms Harris should be attacking him on that, or economists' projections that a second Trump term would add another $7.5 trillion to the national debt.

But when asked about the economy, Ms Harris starts talking about “macroeconomic measures”, her own middle-class upbringing and an “opportunity economy”. It might be good policy but it takes an aeon for her to explain it.

In the words of Ronald Reagan: “If you're explaining, you're losing.'