Democrats are employing their strategy of telling the American voters that they must first give them what they want and then the people can see what they are getting.
It was 2010, during the negotiations to pass The Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, that the woman who was Speaker of the House, California Democrat Rep. Nancy Pelosi, said “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.”
And now the Democrats are saying if you want to see what Vice President Kamala Harris’ agenda for the nation is you have to elect her first.
Harris has avoided doing any interviews, holding any press conferences and rarely speaking to reporters since entering the presidential campaign at the top of the Democrat ticket and now fellow Democrats are advising her to continue doing just that.
And they have taken it a step further by now advising her to keep her policy plans a secret too, after the disastrous rollout of her economic policy that looks, to many, like some hybrid mutant of Venezuelan communism and Cuban socialism.
Among her economic policies are a Soviet-style price control system for corporations and a housing subsidy that critics say would simply raise the asking price for houses.
And two of her polices were lifted directly from the campaign of former President Donald Trump and Ohio Republican Sen. JD Vance, which are no tax on tips and a child tax credit.
“She doesn’t need to negotiate against herself. We’ve got the biggest possible tent right now,” New Hampshire Democrat Rep. Ann McLane Kuster said to Politico. “I don’t think there’s a real strong reason for her to try to weed out any points of view right now.”
“They [voters] have very little knowledge about who she is, what her job has actually been,” one House Democrat from a battleground state said. “They know Trump. They know what his policies are. They don’t know Kamala. And so Kamala has a ton of room right now to define herself.”
But she is not defining herself and that has some Democrats concerned, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The issue, The Journal said, is that Harris’ policy positions are unlikely to have much of a gap from those of President Joe Biden, which is why she wants to hide the details of her plans from the voters.
“Instead, they expect small shifts in emphasis that highlight her résumé and priorities” to keep hidden the details of what her agenda really is “amid concerns from some Democrats that releasing a lengthy plan could open the vice president up to criticism from Republicans and members of her party,” the report said.
“The policy framework is expected to outline broad policy areas she supports, while avoiding many of the thorny details. Aides said they want her agenda to provide a contrast with Trump without reading like a think tank white paper,” The Journal said.
“Harris’s ascension to the top of the ticket has energized Democrats and some allies have cautioned against doing anything that could slow that momentum, including lengthy interviews with media outlets,” it said.
Still, some believe the lack of details could eventually be her undoing.
“There’s already uncertainty with just what does she believe, what she would do,” Jeff Nobers, executive director of Pittsburgh Works Together, said to the Washington Post. “And if she doesn’t support a ban on fracking, what is her energy policy plan?”
Republicans, and the Trump campaign, are pressuring Harris to share details of her agenda because, they believe, the voters will not be fans of her radical ideas.
“Kamala needs to stop insulting the intelligence of voters and speak for herself to explain why she is running from every liberal policy she has ever supported,” Karoline Leavitt, the national press secretary for the Trump and Vance campaign said. “The mainstream media needs to stop being complicit in her lies and demand answers.”
