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Kamala's campaign has been about minimizing attack surface area. I don't see why they would go for broke here unless they think they need to. She'll have some zingers and jabs, because that's what the event is for, but my guess is the people around her don't aim to win the election off of the debate. Trump will provide enough distractions that turn an unimpressive, mediocre performance into a perfectly adequate one. I expect that's what the Kamala campaign wants: an adequate performance that provides some evidence she is not an empty husk. That Slate and WaPo can write about and gloat over. No big risks, no big offensive. She only wants small wins. Small little anecdotes that can comfort "ew/sigh, Trump" people to think okay maybe she is someone I will turn up to vote for.
If a bad (not catastrophic) performance happens there's still some time to at least partially recover. This probably applies to Kamala more so than Trump, but Trump already has a lot Trump priced into the polls right now. Play it safe, do the things, say the stuff, flip flopper, abortion, try not to implode, and hope other person implodes.
Policy differences aside, I'm not sure what kind of performance she could provide in a presidential debate that would convince me she's worth turning up for. It's a contrived arena and POTUS doesn't always get 4 weeks of prep to deal with stuff. I need to see her on her feet, nimble, thinking. I want to see her express a train of thought beyond Politico Brain Speak, or perhaps a more sophisticated version of those same platitudes would do.
There are plenty of people that are looking for reasons to trust Kamala is not only a DNC puppet suit and, while they would never say it, unqualified. Most of them do not like Trump, but she needs a couple wins for these people to point to. Trump, as ever, is a walking wild card. For all I know he'll give the greatest debate performance ever. The debate does provide a mostly unfiltered platform for Trump to reach people that typically only read about his latest antics in their feeds or reporting. If he wanted to sell a More Moderate Presidential Trump it's the best platform he'll get.
I don’t think that’s necessarily true.
First of all, like or hate Trump, he has political views and ideas and he’s been talking about them. She has said very little about what she wants to do. And I think unless she has something she wants to do, is just going to come off as weak. He wants to round up millions of illegal immigrants. What does she want to do here? If he talks about his plan and adds in the crazier stories about what immigrants are doing (for example killing ducks in Ohio parks) and it’s going to be hard to just vibe it. Likewise inflation. Talking in vague generalities isn’t going to make groceries or gas cheaper. Again, if he can point out those stories where this hurts ordinary Americans, she can’t exactly get away with not having a plan.
As far as the bad performance being recoverable, I’m not so sure just because of how close the election is. We vote November 5, two months from now. That’s a pretty small window and probably not enough time for memory to fade. People were talking about Biden’s bad debate for a month or more. I grant that his obvious Sun-downing is probably worse than anything she would ever do, but still it’s not easy to just forget an obviously bad debate. So she kinda has to go for broke here. If she can’t convince people t9 even consider her as anything other than an empty head, she’s not only not going to close the deal, but might lose some Never Trumps.
As I said I expect her performance to be sub-par for me, but most presidential debates are not memorable enough to store in my stupid faux elitist hipster brain. For Kamala's needs, and the average voter watching, I think she has a good chance of getting some small wins and not spontaneously combusting-- a la the Hindenburg or the sitting POTUS. People talked about Biden's debate because it was so terrible he had to leave the race. There's no one else behind her. Kamala is too big to fail.
If she does poor enough to get hurt in the polls she can tap a media machine that's chomping at the bit to get access to her to Learn What She Really Thinks. They will be happy to help her out. Admittedly, if she sucks so bad at the debate her entire campaign and media engagement strategy has to change that's not a good sign. I wouldn't bet on the crash and burn though. Does she need a good performance at the debate to win the election? I say no. Is she capable of getting some monster success out of the debate? I haven't seen signs she is capable of this, but she could surprise us!
That's why I predict safe, boring. She aims for the minimal adequate showing. She has a brain, a mouth, she can memorize some zingers. She's fine. Better than that other guy.
Perhaps this is more deserving of a top level, but Kamala released a policy page on her website! Interestingly, all her policy proposals are juxtaposed against her campaign's summaries of "Project 2025 Agenda". Man, they really committed hard to the 2025 angle. Some bean counter strategists must have determined that if attacking Trump isn't working anymore, then attacking something that represents him is just as good.
Policies include:
I won't look at the Trump campaign's policy page but I bet I could copy paste most of this except guns and change high rent to high inflation. Since this was posted before the debate, I assume we'll hear all about her concrete policies posted to her website during the debate. People say she doesn't have much policy, but don't they know there are concrete policies on her website?
I mean we’re a bad sample simply because we’re tuned into political issues and discussion. Keep in mind that outside of the too-online left and right, most people’s interactions with politics happens in spurts — the conventions, the debates, and maybe they catch an interview or two on a talking head show. They have other interests and are too busy doing other things to really pay close attention to who’s doing what outside of the big show events. Which means that this debate is likely the first time these normies will have really paid attention to what either one of those candidates has to say. This means it’s a make or break for Harris who hasn’t publicly tried to run for office since 2020 when she failed pretty hard.
The media can help, but it’s not going to completely erase a bad performance especially 2 months from the polls. If the normies aren’t following closely, they might not see her interviews with friendly journalists.
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Interestingly enough, I got a Pro-Trump leaflet through the door, and about a quarter of it was dedicated to debunking the fact that Trump supported Project 2025 along with some Trump quotes calling them wrongheaded or something similar.
That tends to suggest at least some of the Trump PAC's et al think connecting him with Project 2025 is a potential weak point. Otherwise you don't spend time and money counter-pointing it. Though my wife had never heard of Project 2025 so all it succeeded in doing for her was make her look it up in a kind of Streisand effect way.
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