Democrats defend Harris for avoiding policy

Democrats are defending Vice President Harris for not diving too far into policy during her condensed campaign, arguing the short timeline lends itself to a focus on broad themes.

The Democratic National Convention focused on topics from freedom to patriotism, was heavy on biography and history, and emphasized building on the momentum behind Harris’s campaign.

But Harris has faced criticism for how light it was on policy specifics.

Democrats argue she can afford to not get too far into the weeds on policy because Americans want to hear about her priorities.

“We’re actually in the final stages of a campaign. We’re both at the beginning and the final stages, and so policy pages are for spring. Voters want to know what direction you’re going,” Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) told reporters at the Capitol this week.

“I truly think it’s more honest to the voters to say here are the 10 things I’m going to work on, than to engage in false precision and post a 700-page document with [legislative] text all done because the truth of it is that good presidents do what Biden did, for instance, and say, ‘I want to do an infrastructure bill, you guys figure it out and I’ll sign it.’”

“The job of the chief executive is to set national priorities, to work with the legislature, and figure out what the market will bear,” Schatz continued. “This idea that we’re supposed to post bills as if they are in final form is for 12 people who run podcasts.”

Republicans have jumped on the criticism. Harris doesn’t have a policy page on her website and the Trump campaign mockingly created kamala2024policies.com, which outlines things like “abolish borders” and “eliminate private health insurance.”

Harris allies consider criticism to be a double standard. Republicans have called on Trump to focus more on policy over personal jabs at Harris, but the former president has continued his personal attacks.

“The fact that there is even a conversation about this shows the double standard between Vice President Harris and Donald Trump. In just one month, Vice President Harris has run an impressive campaign of vision and substance, where she has laid out her plans to build the middle class and fight for freedom,” said Rachel Palermo, former deputy communications director and associate counsel to Harris in the White House.

The vice president on Thursday will sit for her first interview since launching her presidential campaign. CNN’s Dana Bash is sure to press her on hot button issues, from immigration, the economy and Gaza.

Harris also released proposals aimed at lowering costs earlier this month and touting them in remarks in Raleigh, N.C.

Harris’s housing plan calls for constructing 3 million new housing units, a tax incentive for homebuilders to construct “starter homes” to sell to first-time homebuyers and a $40 billion innovation fund for local governments to build housing.

Her child care plan would restore and expand the child tax credit, which was introduced in the 2021 American Rescue Plan and expired that year. She would push to provide up to $3,600 per child in tax credits and call for providing up to $6,000 in tax relief for middle-and-low income families for the first year of their child’s life.

And she called for a federal ban on price-gouging by pushing the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general to investigate corporations that break such rules.

One of the main challenges in rolling out policy items comes down to pure timing, according to Democratic operatives, as the truncated time frame forces tough decisions for Harris and her team.

“We don’t have time for that s‑‑‑,” one Democratic operative said about the idea of lengthy policy proposals. “The reason you talk about policy is to bring the race back to values, and this race is about values now, so why distract.”

“One of the quirks of a 100-day long campaign is that the Harris camp has the ability to be quite surgical about the policy proposals they put out there. They don’t need to boil the ocean on the progressive wishlist,” the operative continued. “They need to be very smart and deliberate about talking specifically about policy ideas that address voters’ top concerns, whether that’s bringing down the cost of housing, cost of groceries, fixing the tax system so it works for everyday working people and keeping healthcare affordable.”

Still, Republicans have heaped criticism on Harris since the convention ended for avoiding questions about how her policy stances have shifted since her 2020 presidential campaign.

Among those changes are on “Medicare for All” and fracking, two issues Republicans are using to bludgeon her campaign.

“That’s one reason why she needs to address the American people and speak to these questions,” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) told ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday. “Because the only basis they have to conclude what she will be like as president is what she’s done for four years in this administration and what she said in her own voice in the last campaign.”

Former GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has called on Republicans to go harder at Harris on policy, focusing on her change on some issues like fracking, which she doesn’t support a ban on after saying in 2019 that she does.

GOP members also believe that they have policy on their side, especially on the economy and the border.

“Policy is your friend … as how to win this race,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said on CNN . “Nothing’s going to change with Vice President Harris.”

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