WaPo: Kamala to Give 'Closing Argument' on National Mall ...

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For everyone else running in this election, it’s crunch time. Every moment counts, and every appearance provides an opportunity.

For Kamala Harris, however, the race must be over. She took two days off the trail this week, will use some valuable time in Texas rather than a battleground state on Friday, and now has signaled that she’s ready to close up shop. At least that’s what the Washington Post reported yesterday, as Harris will deliver her “closing argument” Tuesday at the National Mall.

That’s Tuesday as in next Tuesday. As in, one week before Election Day Tuesday:

Vice President Kamala Harris is planning to deliver her closing argument Tuesday in a speech on the National Mall, according to people familiar with the planning and a permit application obtained by The Washington Post.

The Harris campaign is still finalizing her message, but the vice president plans to present a final case to the American people from a place selected to emphasize a contrast between herself and former president Donald Trump, a candidate who she has argued poses a grave threat to the country, the people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss plans that are not yet public. As part of that, Harris is likely to mention Trump’s role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attacks on the U.S. Capitol, but the speech is expected to be broader than focused on solely what she deems Trump’s threat to American democracy.

Er … does she have somewhere else to be between Wednesday and Monday? Did Harris have a vacation planned that can’t be moved? One could possibly make an argument for a closing speech on the Friday before Election Day, but generally speaking, presidential candidates do that on Sunday or Monday.

Nothing about this makes much sense. For instance, to the extent that she wants to broaden the message beyond the threat that Trump supposedly presents to democracy, that would be an opening argument. Harris has never made a case for herself as president beyond the idea that Trump should be disqualified from the office. As late as yesterday, Harris hasn’t even made a case for why Joe Biden shouldn’t be the nominee rather than herself, other than “ask Joe Biden.” Whenever Harris gets asked about policy, especially about her wholesale flip-flops on policy stands over the last five years, her answers focus on Trump.

Next, why would Harris choose Washington DC for a contrast between herself and Donald Trump? Why not Pennsylvania, Michigan, or Wisconsin? The explanation makes even less sense than a closing argument:

Harris officials have focused on finding symbolic venues for the closing days of the campaign, in an effort to draw maximum media attention beyond rallies in traditional battleground states such as Pennsylvania, where she has at least three events scheduled this week. Harris is spending most of her time in those states, but the closing message of the campaign is designed to speak to the American people more broadly.

“The American people more broadly” aren’t going to elect her. The voters in the battleground states will end up making or breaking her candidacy. By the time she takes the stage at the National Mall — which will also underscore her status as the incumbent in a deeply unpopular status quo — Harris will have spend at least half of the preceding week outside of battleground states and doing nothing to address the concerns of voters within them.

And then plans to kick back, apparently, for the next week after that.

So what does she plan to tell “the American people more broadly”? At least until now, Harris really only has one message, only modulated for stridency: Trump is dangerous. National Review hears that the speech will focus on January 6, which is why she chose the Ellipse at the National Mall:

While her remarks are still being finalized, the plan is to spotlight the storming of the U.S. Capitol in January 2021 as a pivotal moment in his presidency, and to warn against the chaos she believes will ensue in a second Trump administration if he wins.

Her campaign advisers believe that Harris’s decision to speak in this symbolic location will crystallize the choice for Americans and contrast her opponent’s presidency with what the campaign says is Harris’s forward-thinking agenda.

Good Lord. Does anyone think that Democrats haven’t litigated January 6 enough yet? Does Harris think that voters have yet to consider it as an issue? This sounds set up to be a lecture rather than a pitch, along the lines of You owe me your vote by default.

That sounds a lot like what Hillary Clinton tried in 2016 and couldn’t sell, and she has more talent than Harris. Joe Biden beat him in 2020 because of the chaos of the pandemic, but Biden and Harris made that worse — and created far more economic and border chaos than Trump ever did, even accounting for the stupidity of January 6. And the lawfare that Biden and Harris have conducted for the last two years to keep Trump from running for office again did a lot more damage to democracy than the riot did.

Voters have caught onto the obvious, as Sean Collins wrote yesterday for Spiked. She and Biden are the threats to democracy as well as to the economic and security well-being of American voters, and her desperation tactics are proving it:

Unable to connect with voters on the grounds of ideas or personality, Harris is left with ‘at least I’m not Hitler’. But the effectiveness of that pitch this year is very much in doubt. Not only is the talk of Trump’s fascistic tendencies overblown – it is also tired. We have heard this same message since 2015. Trump has already spent four years in the White House, and the sky did not fall in. More importantly, the illiberal and undemocratic actions of Biden, Harris and the Democrats to demonise and bring down Trump have neutralised, in many people’s eyes, anything Trump has done. The lawfare waged against Trump – the questionable legitimacy of so many civil and criminal cases – has been unprecedented against a former president and present candidate, and makes the US look like a banana republic. The Democrats’ attempts to remove him from the ballot were breathtakingly undemocratic as well. Add to this the dirty tricks against Trump, from the Steele dossier to the quashing of the Hunter Biden laptop story. Harris calling Trump an authoritarian is projection.

In that sense, maybe voters really will appreciate a ‘closing argument’ from Harris on Tuesday. For most of them, it can’t come soon enough.