I think it’s fair to say that while Democrats have increased their chances of keeping the White House after unceremoniously dumping Joe Biden, Kamala Harris is still struggling to connect with many voters. In part, that’s simply a reflection of the bitter political divides among Democrats and Republicans, but Harris’s strategy of avoiding tough questions as much as possible isn’t exactly helping her cause either. 

Former White House correspondent Todd Purdum, a Harris supporter, says it’s time that Kamala quits ducking questions and instead provide some straight answers on her “evolving” policies. But I’d argue that what Purdum sees as a glitch in the Harris campaign is actually a strategic decision. 

If Ms. Harris thinks the press just wants to play gotcha — and believe me, she has a point — then she should take questions from everyday voters — even hostile ones — in town halls. The single best moment of John McCain’s 2008 campaign came when he firmly shut down a questioner who called Barack Obama “an Arab.” Ms. Harris’s answers would surely show more than just how she thinks on her feet: They could show what excites her, touches her heart, makes her mad, inspires her vision. Her convention speech and debate performance have already shown how well she can do with diligent preparation. There’s no reason to assume she wouldn’t get steadily better on the fly, with practice.

In fact, in an interview with reporters from the National Association of Black Journalists on Tuesday, she effectively reversed the order of her answer to the Philadelphia anchor on the economy: She started with her policy plans, then her biographical bona fides. She answered a question about whether she felt safe on the campaign trail with a crisp “I do,” but then pivoted to say that she understood how many Americans without the privilege of Secret Service protection did not feel safe.

And what’s her answer? Ban so-called assault weapons, establish a national “red flag” law, and adopt “universal” background checks. But as another exchange with the NABJ on Tuesday showed, when Harris is forced to talk specifics, she shows she’s utterly clueless or completely dishonest about what’s driving violent crime. Harris was asked “how will you address the issue of use of handguns [in crime], because a push for an ‘assault weapons’ ban only addresses a significant but small part of the problem?” Her answer? 

Which is why I also have been very adamant for years, in fact I myself protested at a gun show probably ten or fifteen years ago, about the gun show loophole and why we need to close that. Because what ends up happening is that gun shows at flea markets, gun dealers are not, under existing law in the past, required to register their sales. And so you are exactly right that a lot of homicides, for example, a good number of them, I don’t have the statistic in front of my mind, are committed with illegally purchased guns. And that’s why we need to address each entry point in the issue, including universal background checks, closing the gun show loophole, and what we need to do as a general matter, which is to focus not only on a reaction to crime but prevention of crime.

As we pointed out here yesterday, Harris was wrong about the existing law regarding background checks for commercial sales of firearms and was completely off-base when she suggested that many homicides are committed by individuals illegally acquiring guns at gun shows. A 2016 DOJ study found that more than half of federal inmates who illegally possessed or used a gun in a crime obtained their firearm through theft, while just 0.8% said they got their gun at gun show. 

Unlike Trump, Harris doesn’t have to worry much about being fact-checked by the media or even be pressed to explain how, for instance, she can claim that she isn’t interested in taking anyone’s guns while also proclaiming that the 20+ million modern sporting rifles “have no place on the streets of a civil society”. But Harris and her handlers are so desperate to avoid those questions that they’re running the most tight-lipped campaign in recent memory. 

New w/ @toreyvanoot

In the 59 days since Harris joined the race on July 21st, Trump and Vance have done >70 interviews/pressers w/ print and TV reporters

Harris and Walz have combined for just 7.

The ticket is on pace for the fewest in decades.https://t.co/omHZL4sZ2T pic.twitter.com/5N70Wf4u5m

— Alex Thompson (@AlexThomp) September 19, 2024

Harris is a terrible off-the-cuff speaker, as evidenced by her response to the question about combatting handgun use in crime, but that alone doesn’t explain her reticence to speak on the record in detail about her policies. I think it’s the policies themselves that Harris doesn’t want to address, and I suspect that’s because she hasn’t “evolved” nearly as much as her campaign handlers claim. It’s better to stick to the scripted talking points, even if it rightfully causes some voters to treat her with skepticism, because telling the whole truth would reveal that Harris is still the far-left progressive who wanted to search gun owners’ homes for evidence of unlawful gun storage and said the Second Amendment doesn’t protect an individual right to keep and bear arms.