When People go to the polls on November 5, they should select between two individuals with very completely different coverage agendas. At this level within the marketing campaign that ought to come as no shock.
One second in final week’s CNN’s Townhall with Vice President Kamala Harris made that perfectly clear. Summarizing what distinguishes her from Donald Trump, she mentioned, “The distinction between us is that he’s going to have an enemies listing. I’m going to have a to-do listing to work in your issues.”
This promise was, as David Axelrod noted, “a superb distillation of the stakes on this race. “
However good or not, Harris’s efficiency on CNN was boring. That was the purpose.
What Harris lacks in charisma, she greater than makes up for in her real dedication to public service and fixing actual issues. Harris used the city corridor to spotlight that dedication and the decision-making fashion she would carry to the Oval Workplace.
Earlier than a dwell viewers of undecided voters, Harris displayed a cautious, pragmatic, and boring fashion, one that may serve her and the American individuals nicely. Voters on the lookout for a each day spectacle emanating from the White Home will be sorely disappointed by a future Harris administration.
Greater than something she mentioned about coverage, the CNN occasion showcased how Harris would assume when unexpected issues come up or when she confronts a nationwide or worldwide disaster. On the finish of the day, it is a president’s decision-making style that determines how they are going to wield energy and whether or not this nation stays sturdy and affluent or survives an existential disaster.
Harris has the best one. All through the hour-long CNN occasion, she confirmed repeatedly how she would wield energy. For instance when she was pressed about her shifting stances on fracking, Medicare for All, and different points she described her willingness to embrace good concepts, construct consensus, and never “stand on satisfaction.”
“I consider in fixing issues. I really like fixing issues,” she defined. “And so I pledge to you to be a president who not solely works for all People, however works on getting stuff accomplished, and which means compromise.”
When she was asked by CNN’s Anderson Cooper about mistakes she has made in her profession and what she realized from them, Harris hesitated as is her wont, earlier than admitting she has made “many errors.” What got here subsequent was most vital in showcasing the way in which she goers about making selections.
“In my position as vp I believe I’ve in all probability labored very onerous at ensuring that I’m nicely versed on points and I believe that is essential. I believe it’s a mistake to not be nicely versed on a problem and be compelled to reply a query.”
Promising to be “nicely versed on points” will not be the stuff of George Washington’s Farewell Tackle, or Lincoln at Gettysburg, or FDR’s “We’ve got nothing to worry however worry itself.” However in distinction to Trump’s disinterest in figuring out the small print of something, it provides voters a candidate who’s nicely value supporting.
When Harris was requested by an viewers member about which weaknesses she would carry to the presidency and the way she would work round them, she drove residence her message in regards to the form of president she could be.
Harris acknowledged that “I will not be fast to have the reply as quickly as you ask it a few particular coverage problem generally as a result of I’m going to wish to analysis it. I’m going to wish to research it…. I’m form of a nerd generally, I confess. And a few may name {that a} weak spot, particularly for those who’re in an interview. “
Politico has characterized Harris’s method to resolution making by saying that “She sounds out concepts with a variety of advisers and associates…[and] actually likes to speak to lots of people when she thinks about coverage growth.”
And individuals who have labored with Harris wouldn’t have been shocked by what she mentioned through the city corridor. For instance, final July Gil Duran, who was communications director for Vice President Kamala Harris when she was California’s state lawyer basic, told NPR, “She tends to actually put quite a lot of thought into points as a result of I believe she’s educated as a lawyer and as a prosecutor, the place you’re on the lookout for very particular particulars and going over the case repeatedly.”
Duran worries that “she will generally be gradual to decide.” However even he famous that in her time as California’s AG that Harris “collected actually an incredible array of very sensible attorneys and different individuals” to advise her.
The distinction with Trump couldn’t be starker.
Let’s begin with the truth that the previous president is extraordinarily lazy and inattentive. That’s the reason when he was within the White Home he spent most of his time “tweeting, calling mates, and watching Fox Information.”
Furthermore, as president, Trump struggled “to focus in conferences,… ignore[d] intelligence briefings, and tune[d] out coverage trivia.” He has characterized his personal decision-making fashion as follows: “I’ve a intestine, and my intestine tells me extra generally than anyone else’s mind can ever inform me.”
And if Trump’s laziness will not be dangerous sufficient, there is his impulsiveness. Because the journalist Allan Sloan observes, “I’ve been protecting Donald Trump on and off for greater than 25 years, and what has all the time struck me is his lack of impulse management.”
Sloan argues that “self-control could be very related for a president of the US. Whether or not we’re speaking in regards to the Bay of Pigs (when John F. Kennedy resisted the hawkish instincts of his advisers who wished to escalate) or the bugging of Democratic headquarters (which Richard Nixon couldn’t resist) or the invasion of Iraq…, presidents are bombarded with probabilities to overreact, and their overreactions can have catastrophic penalties for our nation and the world.”
Writing on Tuesday, October 22, the day earlier than Harris’s look on CNN, New York Occasions columnist Ezra Klein offered a somewhat different take on Trump’s lack of impulsiveness. “Disinhibition,” he wrote, “is the engine of Trump’s success. It’s a energy. It’s what makes him magnetic and compelling on a stage. It’s what permits him to say issues others wouldn’t say, to make arguments they’d not make, to attempt methods they’d not attempt.”
Nonetheless, Klein goes on to elucidate that whereas such disinhibition could make him profitable on the marketing campaign path, it’s harmful within the White Home, particularly when it’s “yoked to a malignancy at his core….” Klein reminds us that Trump is a “narcissist…[who] doesn’t see past himself and what he thinks and what he needs and the way he’s feeling. He doesn’t hearken to different individuals. He doesn’t take correction or path.”
Donald Trump, Klein suggests “doesn’t actually be taught. He as soon as informed a biographer, “After I have a look at myself within the first grade and I have a look at myself now, I’m principally the identical. The temperament will not be that completely different.”
So there you’ve got it.
Can America actually afford to be ruled by a president who’s lazy, impulsive, imply, and narcissistic? Voters want to consider carefully about how they wish to reply that query and whether or not they wish to put their destiny within the palms of somebody who acknowledges he has the temperament of a primary grader.
Given a alternative between that and somebody who’s as cautious, pragmatic, and boring as Kamala Harris was on CNN, I’ll take cautious, pragmatic, and, sure, boring each time.
