Don’t Spike the Football
Published at 09:48 on 29 July 2024
There is much celebration within the Democratic Party as Kamala Harris is proving herself to be a decidedly more viable candidate than Joe Biden was. Because of course she is.
Don’t celebrate prematurely. We’re barely a week into her campaign, in a year where the news cycle has at times moved very quickly. Remember the assassination attempt on Trump? Seems like really old news, yet in fact it was a little over a fortnight ago.
Celebrating now is the equivalent of celebrating a touchdown that ties the score at the beginning of the final quarter. That score is irrelevant. The only score that matters is the score at the moment the final whistle blows.
There will be dirt that comes to light about Harris. Because of course there will be. All candidates are flawed. The real test is how effectively her campaign responds to that dirt.
Just because the Trumpers haven’t announced any really good dirt yet doesn’t mean that they don’t already know of some, yet are keeping a lid on it …for now… because they want to do damage later on when it will be more strategically harmful. (No, Trump himself couldn’t stop blabbing about it. But at least some of his strategists have the sort of self-control that Trump lacks.) And then there’s the currently hidden dirt that the Trump campaign has yet to unearth, but is sure to find later.
Do not assume that current absence of evidence is evidence of absence.
And that’s just the dirt we are talking about. Then there’s Harris herself. She really blew it in the 2020 primary. Hopefully she learned her lesson and will listen to her handlers this time. (She also has more and better handlers. Last time, she was one of many primary candidates in a large field, and thus competing for a limited supply of campaign advisors. Now, she has basically unrestricted access to the Democratic Party’s top advisors.) If she fails to exercise sufficient self-discipline, however, these advantages could be for naught.
The time to celebrate will be when the polls close and the election is called for Harris. We’re not there yet. Not by a long shot.