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Here is an interesting development: Kamala Harris is now demanding unmuted microphones for her debate with Donald Trump.
It's been memory holed, but I seem to remember the general opinion being that allowing Trump to interrupt his opponent during debates gave him an unfair advantage since he would interrupt more often. This appears to be a complete 180. It's tempting to model this as a reflexive reaction to Trump's dominance in the June debate with Biden (which muted the candidates' microphones when it wasn't their turn to speak), but I get the sense that there are deeper strategic considerations at play. A few possibilities:
The Harris Campaign wants Trump to come off as unhinged by giving him the oppurtunity to make a complete ass of himself. This didn't work for Jeb, Rubio, Cruz, or Hillary, but maybe it will work for Harris? (I am pressing X to doubt)
Kamala wants to unleash her inner prosecutor and roll around in the mud with Trump. This could work, but it strikes me as the kind of thing that sounds better in the shower than it does in real life.
This is just mind games. The Harris Campaign is using meaningless nitpicks to bait Trump into doing something stupid. I think this is an underrated strategy in general. It would be very bullish for Harris if the people in charge are this smart.
My guesses are more like some mix of
They're changing the conditions repeatedly to try to get Trump to pick a fight in a fit of pique and call off the debate altogether. Which Trump might do at any given time. This is at worst a neutral outcome for Kamala.
They want a messy debate where Trump yells a lot and she scolds a lot and the moderators try to get everyone back into order and nobody even remembers what anyone said about anything substantive. They don't think Kamala can deliver a great performance, so the best choice is to make sure that Trump doesn't either. The noise about it is at worst a neutral outcome for Kamala.
I maintain my theory that Kamala's mission is primarily aiming to shithouse a draw, and if she manages a win then great. But the goal is to make sure the Dems win the house, hang onto as close a margin in the Senate as possible, and hopefully win the popular vote to undermine the Trump "mandate" in the popular consciousness. What could undermine that goal is a disaster debate, where Kamala looks lost on substantive issues.
So they're minimizing risks. The better, more substantial debate has upside, but it has downside. A shithouse yelling match will just force everyone to double down on their priors and won't change anything.
I like this take.
Trump's debate performance is a known quantity. He can land solid substantive points earlier in the debate. He had some real wins on immigration in the first half with Biden. He then gets either bored, distracted, or hung up on a single issue. This turns into rambling, but Trumpian rambling has a fixed return on investment - pretty much zero, but not negative.
Kamala's debate abilities are forecast to be between 2008 financial crisis and negative eleven billion. The DNC showed she can give a speech, perhaps. But the time pressures and direct adversarial nature of a debate are not at all her home field.
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Exactly. The dems are losing two senate seats for sure, and there’s good chances of losing two or three more. They don’t really have pickup opportunities. Their standard bearer is a ditz whose softball interview with CNN had to be edited and still looked bad. The democrats strategy is to minimize risk as much as possible while trying to drive TDS. If Kamala can scrape out a win that way it’s great, but if she can’t, then at least keep the republicans from winning 54 senate seats and enough house seats to do what they want.
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