In the home stretch of the presidential election, Kamala Harris and the Democrats have to regain the momentum that they ceded to Donald Trump a few weeks ago.
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The effort required to get an object to move is greater than the effort required to keep it going.
Anybody who has ever pushed a car knows that, once some sort of momentum has been achieved, things get much easier. It’s like that in many aspects of life, including sports or politics.
While we generally try to stay away from sports metaphors, we’ll make an exception this time because we assume that most readers are at least somewhat familiar with football.
Imagine that it’s Super Bowl Sunday. An entire season comes down to 60 minutes of football. In this game, the MAGA Mayhem faces the DC Democrats. At the half, MAGA is up hugely… let’s say 24-0. Therefore, the coaches for the Democrats decide to make a change at quarterback because the current signal caller is 81 years old.
In comes an untested backup. However, because the Mayhem had only drawn up a game plan for the previous starter, things start going the Democrats’ way.
After a quick touchdown that makes it 24-7, the Democrats and their fans have hope again. Seeing how the tide seems to be turning a bit, the Mayhem’s quarterback, a feeble-minded braggart who talks a good game but whose most effective years are long gone, fumbles the ball right away.
The Democrats’ offense comes back on the field and immediately scores one touchdown and, after an interception, another one.
All of a sudden, the score is 24-21 going into the final quarter.
Even though they are behind, the Democrats have all the momentum now, and every observer can tell that they just have to keep doing what they are doing to win.
Yet, inexplicably, the coaches change the strategy and start being overly cautious. Instead of staying on the attack and being aggressive, the team abandons the game plan that got them back into the game. As a result, the game stays 24-21 until the two-minute warning after both teams trade ineffective drives and punts.
Now, the Democrats get the ball back one more time and have a choice to make: Should they do the thing that got them within striking distance of a seemingly unlikely victory, or should they throw away their chances by being too passive?
That is the question Kamala Harris also has to ask herself.
After replacing President Joe Biden on the Democratic ticket, she had all the momentum. She kept gaining in the polls, got favorable press coverage, raised gazillions of dollars, and rode a wave of enthusiasm to the lead in the polls.
Harris picked a likable running mate and had a good convention.
And then, her campaign hit the brakes. After all, everything was going her way, so why rock the boat? Surely Donald Trump was going to self-implode. For the first time since losing the 2020 election and failing to pull off a coup, he was on the defensive.
For a few weeks, hardly anybody was paying attention to the former president, who had just been shot, because it was nicer to focus on somebody positive than on a cranky old doomsayer who was performing his speeches like an aging lounge singer just going through past hits.
That was the time for Harris to put Trump away… if she had just kept her foot on the gas pedal and kept that precious momentum.
Instead, she (and an army of political operatives who all seem to have only one playbook) let Trump back in the game.
Even though he is no more than a carnival act, he is at least an entertaining carnival act… and one who can generate revenue for news outlets.
As a result, the one thing that never should have happened did: It is now Trump who has the momentum. He is the one dominating news cycles, and it is once again the Democrats who are on the defensive.
This is a crisis entirely of their own making.
After finally fielding a winning team (against an extremely unpopular opponent), they just had to keep going.
Granted, Trump may fumble around again in the final five weeks, but relying on that to happen is not a strategy.
A lot more bad things could happen for Harris and the Democrats — simply because they are in power. A terrorist attack, a foreign policy crisis, a bunch of crimes being committed by undocumented immigrants, a stock market dip, or some other bad economic news (which is a bit unfair because all of the good economic news of recent weeks has not moved the needle their way).
That last one, by the way, is a great example of what being cautious gets you: Nothing!
Harris should be out there touting these economic successes instead of worrying that the issue overall is bad for her, just as she should tackle criticism of her performance on immigration head-on.
In football terms, she has to go on the offensive instead of playing prevent defense.
Everything she does in the last five weeks should be about counterattacking GOP lies and talking points.
She should go to a small business that is adding jobs and say: “Yes, I have had 3.5 years to do something about the very real problems that the coronavirus and Donald Trump’s administration have created, and H– Sheet Metal here in Pennsylvania is proof that our policies work.”
Or: “Yes, we have seen robust economic growth, and a soaring stock market. But, here in Michigan, it’s not just about the numbers and the Dow Jones setting new records almost every day. It’s about everyday people with everyday problems. And we have been addressing them, for example by sharply reducing the cost of insulin and many prescription drugs. Here in the D– Senior Center, the average resident is saving $300 every month while our opponents want them to pay more so that the pharmaceutical industry can continue to make record profits on the back of America’s seniors… and Donald Trump doesn’t even want them to pay taxes on this windfall.”
Or: “Donald Trump’s economic plan seems to consist of hawking Trump coins, Trump sneakers, Trump NFTs, Trump Bibles, and many more. Just like with anything else, that only helps him, and not the American people. Our platform puts them first.”
Or: “Yes, prices were too high after the pandemic wreaked havoc on supply lines. But, while my opponent will have you believe that inflation is still soaring, it is down to 2.2 percent year-to-year. And if we stay on that path, it will go down even lower. But if we adopt my opponent’s ‘tariffs on everything’ plan, we would essentially put in place a sales tax for all Americans that will make just about every good more expensive.”
On immigration, she has to go to the many communities and businesses that benefit from having hard-working immigrants do the jobs many Americans don’t want.
And, for every criminal migrant the GOP and Fox News roll out, her campaign should find 10 immigrants who are changing their communities for the better… by volunteering, pulling people out of cars during floods, opening businesses, teaching Sunday schools, and a million other ways.
Finally, wherever she goes, Harris must be prepared to address and attack a set of Republican lies. If the media does a poor job of fact-checking Trump and the GOP, then she will just have to do it herself.
That will not only change the narrative on these issues but also put her in the news (both local and national), which is where she needs to be.
The mindset of the entire campaign has to be attack, attack, attack.
That’s what Trump does… and it got him back in the game.
Conversely, there isn’t a ton that the former president (or running mate JD Vance) can do that would make people view them less favorably.
Sure, every time either one of them opens his mouth, he seems more likely to put his foot in it and say something outrageous, but that’s nothing new.
Conversely, that also means that there are more opportunities for Democrats to wrestle the initiative away from Trump again.
The first one comes tonight when Tim Walz, whom Americans generally view positively, takes on Vance, whom Americans generally don’t like at all, in the vice presidential debate.
As a former coach, maybe he will recognize that, in order to win, the Democrats once again have to regain the momentum they lost.
Otherwise, mayhem wins the day.
In his Navigating the Insanity columns, Klaus Marre provides the kind of hard-hitting, thought-provoking, and often humorous analysis you won’t find anywhere else.
