Don't blame simply the media for skinny protection; blame Harris's zero-substance marketing campaign

For those who suppose the information protection of Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential marketing campaign is frustratingly paper-thin, you are not alone.

We all know little about her present coverage positions or what she’d pursue as president. However let’s not be too arduous on the journalists. The dearth of strong information protection is usually right down to the Harris marketing campaign being a hole shell, constructed solely from emotions and feelings. It is “good vibes” throughout. It is arduous for the media to cowl one thing that is not there.

Harris has but to take a seat for an interview with any journalist. Her handlers are additional cautious to make sure she makes no off-the-cuff remarks to members of the press. Harris has unveiled no detailed coverage positions, supplied only a few agenda specifics and lacks even a coverage part on her campaign website. 

The New Yorker’s Jay Caspian Kang stated it finest when he complained that there is “an energized, good feeling about Marketing campaign Kamala — to a level not felt, on a presidential stage, since Barack Obama’s final race — and no person needs to mess that up with debates about coverage.”

The Harris marketing campaign is absolutely hunkered down, seemingly with no plans to make the candidate broadly accessible to the press or the general public exterior of tightly scripted and coordinated marketing campaign occasions. They plan to coast to Election Day solely on the fumes of “pleasure” and obscure however optimistic press.

The dearth of coverage specifics, or perhaps a clearly outlined political imaginative and prescient, has left information shops akin to Politico to scrounge for tales. Sadly, this has resulted in lots of zero-substance fluff experiences with headlines akin to, “Mindy Kaling is proud to be Kamala Harris’s cooking partner,” and “In Tim Walz, Black women see the ‘right white man’ for VP.”

A marketing campaign with nothing to say is partially why the New York Times is publishing articles with headlines akin to, “A Comedy Critic Weighs In on Kamala Harris’s Laugh,” whose subhead reads, “The Trump marketing campaign sees Harris’s chortle as a vulnerability to take advantage of. However removed from a legal responsibility, it’s one in all her only weapons.”

Harris’s substance-free marketing campaign is why the Atlantic likewise revealed an article titled “Kamala Harris and the Threat of a Woman’s Laugh.” The subhead reads, “Criticism of emotional expression has lengthy been a weapon of selection for these wanting to chop down girls in political energy.”

Or, my private favourite, which comes from the Misplaced Angeles Occasions: “Kamala Harris is a cook — and a good one. Will it help her win?” The subhead on that’s even higher, “Vice President Kamala Harris is a gourmand — one who is aware of how one can brine a turkey, and the place to seek out good Oaxacan meals in L.A. She’s made it a part of her political persona.” 

It appears unlikely that Vice President Harris’s data of Oaxacan meals will assist her in essential Waukesha County. However when there’s nothing to report, that is what you find yourself with.

To make sure, we might undoubtedly see equally flattering protection for another Democratic candidate. But, on this actual occasion, with the Harris 2024 marketing campaign, there actually is nothing for reporters to cowl however “good emotions” and fluff. The protection is horrible, and we’re drowning in infinite “pleasure” nonsense, however that’s not solely on the press. An evident lack of substance is why, in protection of the Democratic nominee, sure journalists and commentators have taken to speculating concerning the insurance policies Harris could or could not pursue as president.

They can not outright defend her imaginative and prescient as a result of they simply do not know what she actually believes. When the Democrat runs a “vibes solely” marketing campaign, hypothesis is all you’ve gotten left.

“Generally you simply should ignore the economists,” learn the headline to an Atlantic article imagining what Harris would possibly imply when she says she needs to impose price-controls to fight persistently excessive grocery costs.

Axios argued the identical, utilizing identically speculative language in an article titled, “Do not name it worth controls: How worth gouging bans actually work.”

At the least one can say of Republican nominee Donald Trump that he is an immigration hawk. One can say he is anti-China. However what can anybody say about Harris’s coverage positions that her spokesperson will not later deny?

If the protection of the Democratic marketing campaign is exceptionally skinny, it is as a result of the marketing campaign itself is exceptionally skinny. If the Harris marketing campaign have been a sitcom, it might be “Seinfeld” — not as a result of it is a present about backstabbing sociopaths, however as a result of it is a present about nothing.

Becket Adams is a author in Washington and program director for the National Journalism Center.