Harris Pleased Base In Debate, But Alienated Crucial Floaters

“They would have been appalled at the lack of respect shown to Trump, and the flagrant partisanship of the so-called moderators from ABC”

    No doubt you will have heard Kamala Harris hit a few home runs at the debate with former president Donald Trump and is now a shoe-in to win the presidential election November 5.

    Think again.

    Don’t feel bad about being bamboozled though because the U.S. main-stream media – national TV and newspapers with a couple of brave exceptions (Fox and the Wall Street Journal) – are nothing if not consistent in their bias and gaslighting.

    True, Harris did much better than most people expected, but it’s because of extremely low expectations that the MSM was able to generate such hyperbolic enthusiasm. And of course as usual they all spoke with one voice.

    The feeble British Washington-based media and BBC all went along with the conventional wisdom, although I did spot an early reference by the Daily Telegraph that the debate was a draw. That was before the hysteria set in.  

    If you think about Harris’s mission, she failed dismally. Even the MSM thinks it’s a very tight race, so Harris had to do two things. Introduce herself to the public (she remains an unknown entity despite or because of being hidden in the White House as vice-president for nearly 4 years) and win over the floating voters. With this close election, there’s no point in appealing to the political base, but that’s exactly what she did.

    Insulted and belittled 

    If you look at her performance during the debate though it was incredibly aggressive. She insulted and belittled Trump at every opportunity. When challenged by Trump to answer basic questions like the famous – “do you feel better or worse compared with 4 years ago”, she waffled and meandered. When challenged to provide a policy or two she couldn’t provide more than hopeless word salads, her basic, awful schtick. Her performance showed her to be arrogant, entitled and charm-free. Did this convince the base that they had a candidate they could believe in? Sure; the paid gobs on MSNBC did their stuff, and democrat fanatics across the nation said hail to the chief.
    But how about the floating voters? Would they have been convinced? Not in my opinion. They would have been appalled at the lack of respect shown to Trump, and the flagrant partisanship of the so-called moderators from ABC. They looked like paid-for operatives of the Democrat party, as they relentlessly fact-checked Trump and let Harris get away with a string of porkies. 

    Canard

    My favourite? Four police were killed during the January 6 “insurrection”, the first attempt to overthrow a government in the history of the world that didn’t have a gun between them. This canard that police were killed during the riots was started by a report in the New York Times that had to be corrected with great embarrassment about a month later. No policemen were killed that day, although a riot participant, Ashli Babbit was shot dead for no reason. The perpetrator is known, but so far remains free. That won’t last long if Trump wins. The trouble with big lies is that they reverberate very strongly at the time, but if they are corrected a bit later, nobody notices.

    Watching the Journal Editorial Report on Fox News, I was gratified to hear the Wall Street Journal’s Dan Henninger declare the Harris debate performance wasn’t a success because she alienated the very votes she desperately needs to win. I agree with you Dan, and Trump still has the inside track to victory.