Member Newsletter
I’m reading through a Puck newsletter, sent out under the heading “The Vibes Election.” Some of this is similar to what I discussed in yesterday’s Backchannel — Happy v. Mad, etc. But most of it zeroes in on the idea that Harris’ campaign is all vibes and no substance, a sugar high, something that can’t last. Will it be enough to carry her to Election Day? Here’s one snippet.
Put another way: Vibes, baby! Harris has not outlined any specific economic agenda, speaking only in generic terms about corporate greed, standing with labor unions, protecting Social Security and Obamacare, and fighting for the middle class. She is framing the election simply as “the choice about what direction this country will go in”—conveying an agreeable set of center-left values against Trump rather than a 10-point plan for this or a white paper for that.
In his defense, the author, Peter Hamby, follows this paragraph by saying that elections are about symbols and images and many voters are okay with that. But I think we can say more about this. Because this conversation is of a piece with the complaints about Harris not yet giving any major press interviews, not having released a sufficient number of policy white papers, not yet having a fully fleshed out policy section on her website.
To start, we should note that major national campaigns take months, even years, to put out fleshed-out policy programs. Those are hugely complex projects with myriad policy, coalitional and campaign dependencies. You’re not going to do that from a cold start in three weeks. But there’s a different point here. For years on this site I’ve discussed the Democrats’ problem with what I’ve called “policy literalism,” the idea that campaigns are won or lost on the basis of fleshed-out policies ready to be implemented on day one as opposed to directional signals about values and goals. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with having those fleshed-out policies. That’s one of the good things about Democrats. There’s a big cultural priority on policy work in Democratic politics. Those are important when it comes time to govern, and you can routinely see that in how each party governs. In Republican politics, policy is often backfill to service campaign slogans. And it shows. Having the people who do the serious policy work is great and important as long as you don’t confuse yourself into thinking it’s part of campaigning. It’s not. Campaigning is about directional signals about values and goals. Way too often Democrats and Democratic campaigns get confused about this. “We have all these great policy proposals. And when we explain them to people, they say they support them. So how did we lose the election?”
That’s not what campaigns are about. Repeat it to yourself three times. That’s not what campaigns are about.
Even that line above in the Hamby quote sets out something very clear: she is speaking about protecting Social Security and Obamacare, supporting labor unions. Hamby was talking about economic policy, but the Harris campaign is also saying just as clearly: protect abortion rights everywhere, continue Biden’s climate policies. She also keeps saying on the campaign trail that she’ll sign the border bill that Donald Trump killed earlier this year. Not everyone in the Democratic coalition is crazy about that. But that’s very specific, both directionally and in policy terms. And let’s be frank: she’s the incumbent Vice President. Unless there are specific statements to the contrary, we should and the public unquestionably does assume her policies will be generally the same as Biden’s. Harris’ central campaign slogan and message is “freedom,” which she is using as a catch-all to bring together fighting right-wing efforts to restrict personal privacy and autonomy (abortion), the MAGA threat to democratic government itself and support for bread-and-butter economic policies (unions, Obamacare, tax support for families with kids, etc.) which allow working people to live dignified and secure lives. This is a rhetoric that is progressive and rooted in ideas venerated in American political culture. Many have recommended something like this. Pete Buttigieg, interestingly, was one of the first I saw employing this rhetoric way back when he was still a little-known midwestern mayor. Now Harris is doing it. It’s working.
We could make a separate point that it’s risible to be demanding policy particulars from Harris when Trump changes his policies from one day to the next. Even calling them “policies,” as opposed to impulsive grunts, is charitable. At present, Trump’s main’s policy action is disclaiming Project 2025, which until a few months ago was widely believed to be his de facto governing document, as embraced as such by the campaign itself. But we don’t need to grade Harris on a Trumpy curve. Presidential campaigns are about defining choices about the direction of country. Having people getting excited about your campaign and your vision about the future of the country is a good thing, not some frivolous sugar high. I’m sure Harris will do some sit-down interviews. But we should remember that the purpose of a campaign is to win an election. It’s not an exercise in civics education. Campaigns do interviews when they want to get a message out or in response to popular demand. Journalist push for interviews. That’s their job. Campaigns respond when they deem it in their interests.
From Republican partisans these cries are expected. You hammer on what you think might be potential vulnerabilities. It’s the business of reporters to be pushing for more access and interviews. But more generally there’s a kind of impatience with a fairly dramatic shift in the trajectory of the election. It must not be real. It must be emotion and not reason. It must be cheap. We’re almost two and half months before Election Day. Given how much has happened in the previous six weeks, a universe of things can happen in ten. But there’s nothing cheap or vibesy or anything less than robust about the campaign Harris is now running. She’s putting out a vision and creating a choice and the public is responding to it. It’s working. Why on earth would she shift gears or respond to anyone trying to break her stride?