When Kamala Harris Imitates Ronald Reagan (No, Really) - 9/9/24

As Kamala Harris prepares for her face-off with Donald Trump on Tuesday night, she may draw some inspiration and guidance from other successful debate performances from past campaigns. There are lessons for her to learn from Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, and possibly even John F. Kennedy. But days after receiving an improbable endorsement from former Republican vice president, Dick Cheney, she can achieve her most important strategic objective in the debate by following the example of another conservative icon. 

Just as Ronald Reagan was challenging an incumbent president about whom the American people had long since made up their mind, Harris is today running against a former president about whom no voter lacks extremely strong and unalterable opinions. Trump’s unfavorable ratings are based primarily on his personal conduct, while Jimmy Carter’s unpopularity was tied to his job performance. But neither of their campaigns ever held any illusions that they could persuade the electorate to reconsider their assessment of their candidate.

So both Carter’s and Trump’s advisors recognized that their only option was to convince a sizable number of swing voters that their opponent could not be trusted with the keys to the White House gates. Reagan’s challenge was to demonstrate to the nation that he was not the crazed warmonger that his opponents portrayed him to be, and that he had a much stronger command of the issues than the aging actor who the Democrats had caricatured throughout the campaign. While the specifics of Harris’ task in this debate are much different than those that Reagan faced in his first general election opportunity, she must also meet a threshold of credibility for the large portion of the audience that simply doesn’t know that much about her.

Reagan’s primary objective for that initial debate was not to dominate or to dazzle, but simply to reassure. Americans who had concluded that Carter could not handle the demands of the presidency required a certain level of comfort that the challenger was up to the job. The candidate who became known as The Great Communicator didn’t need to be great that night. And except for one memorable sound bite (“Are you better off now than you were four years ago?”), he wasn’t. But he was good enough. By the time the debate was over, swing voters had concluded that he was not a lightweight, that he understood the public policy imperatives necessary to govern, and that he was not going to start a nuclear war. The upstart was no longer scary, and he won the election handily.

Harris’ bar for success is only slightly higher. Like Reagan, she must demonstrate a basic understanding of the policy imperatives that the next president will confront in office. But she must also show that her shift on many issues important to the voters was the result of increased experience and heightened awareness, rather than political convenience. Her repeated assertion in her recent CNN interview that “my values have not changed” seemed to be aimed more at reassuring worried progressives than convincing skeptical centrists. The question is almost certainly coming again on Tuesday night. She will need a better answer.

The biggest difference between Reagan’s and Harris’ situations (aside from their diametrically opposed ideological beliefs) is the wild card of Trump. Carter was an underwhelming and predictable presence: by that point in his career, he had nothing unexpected to offer. Trump, on the other hand, is a walking basket of surprises. It’s impossible to guess how he will conduct himself in the debate, and an over-the-top performance could make Harris appear calm and in control by comparison. This is why Harris’ advisors fought so hard to keep the candidates’ microphones turned on when they weren’t speaking – and why Trump’s team fought even harder to keep them off.

Trump may decide that his best bet at showing that Harris is not prepared for the presidency is to rattle her through relentless attacks throughout the evening. His supporters are hoping that he focuses on criticizing her record on the issues, most notably inflation, crime and immigration. To date, Trump has preferred personal assaults, which are more likely to excite his base and to offend undecided voters.

But this debate is not about Trump. It’s about Harris, and whether she has the strength, the knowledge and the composure to withstand his onslaught and present herself as a less-risky alternative to those Americans who are ready for something different.