Our Take on Tonight’s Debate

I do not think that the entire election will turn on tonight’s debate.

Even after Joe Biden’s disastrous performance in June, polling numbers only nudged down slightly for him. The reason is that voters are so polarized, so locked-in and so split down the middle. No matter what happens there just isn’t much room for either candidate to rise or fall.

Still, it will matter some and, in an environment like this, some might be enough.

It seems to me that most of the potential and risk is with Kamala Harris. We know what we’ll get from Donald Trump. He’ll be obnoxious, insulting and ignorant of the issues when he’s not telling outright lies. He can do nothing to shake his unshakable base or make those of us who hate him hate him even more. We’re already at 11.

But Harris is still defining herself. So far she’s done well. She comes off as positive, confident and that most amorphous of qualities — relatable. In some ways, not unlike Barack Obama, 2008.

So her first job tonight is to not lose that mojo. She probably has a narrower window in which to operate because she’s a woman. If she attacks too hard she’ll come off as angry. If she doesn’t hit back hard enough she’ll be called weak.

She might do well by taking quick shots at Trump and then pivoting to her own positive message about the future. That runs counter to what many are expecting of her. As a former prosecutor, some Democrats are looking forward to her taking it to Trump. She’s got to do some of that. She can’t afford to let Trump off the hook, the way Biden did, on abortion or January 6th.

But she can go too far. She did that during a debate in the 2020 primary. Frankly, she didn’t stand out in that debate overall, so I’m not sure where all the stuff about her being a great debater comes from. But she really lost me when she attacked Joe Biden for his opposition to forced school busing decades ago.

For one thing it was a cheap shot since Biden has been a champion for civil rights his entire career. For another, busing is incredibly unpopular and she wanted to be seen as a champion of it only to win some support on the narrow hard-left of her party, which would have made her a weaker general election candidate. And third, she did it in a ham-fisted kind of way. “I was that little girl.” Oh, for cryin’ out loud. And the t-shirts had already been printed.

So, if that Harris shows up tonight she’ll hurt her chances significantly. But there’s evidence from the past couple of months to suggest that that was Kamala 1.0 and it has been fully replaced with an update that has all the bugs worked out.

And then there’s the vibe. Forget about specifics for a moment and just watch and let the words flow over you. Last time Trump looked robust in comparison to the sadly diminished Joe Biden. But this time he’ll look old and perhaps not just cranky, but fully unhinged, in comparison to Harris, who is two decades younger. No matter what she actually says, Harris will speak in complete English sentences. She’ll group those sentences into paragraphs to form coherent thoughts. Both Trump and Biden were incapable of that. Voters may notice the contrast this time around.

Trump will be a jerk. We know this. If Harris comes off as tough but restrained in her attacks on him, confident, acknowledging of the legitimate concerns many Americans have about the country and yet positive about our future, she may pick up another point or two.

It won’t be a knock out blow. But even a nudge in the right direction in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania could be enough.