Photos by Gage Skidmore
Kamala Harris and Donald Trump sitting at a piano.
Both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris had a chance to reintroduce themselves to voters over the last few weeks. Harris knocked it out of the park while Trump struck out.
But baseball is not the analogy that gets it quite right. We'll turn to music instead.
After the attempt on his life, which came literally an inch or so from succeeding, Trump went quiet and claimed that it had changed him. And for the first few minutes of his long acceptance speech at the Republican convention it appeared that maybe he was different.
But then he wasn't. He drifted off into his stump speech, which can best be described as free associating his grievances, jumping from one imagined slight to another as it occurred to him in real time. He was lying, vindictive, petty, self-obsessed and barely coherent. In a word, he was unhinged. In another word, he was Trump. You could almost hear the hair of Republican strategists being pulled from their scalps. "All... he had... to do… was read what was on the teleprompter. Just... read… the freakin' script… Another bourbon, please."
Yet, he might have even survived that but for what came next. And what came next was Joe Biden going. Unable, or more likely unwilling, to see the writing on the wall, Nancy Pelosi engineered a campaign to improve his vision. Biden dropped out and quickly pivoted the whole party toward Harris, who just as quickly hoovered up the support and secured the nomination before you could say "Alabama."
Now, let me pause right here to admit that I was all for the virtual smoke-filled room but not the candidate who emerged from it. I thought Democratic insiders were right to forgo any speed dating process and pick their candidates the old fashioned way, which is to say behind closed doors. I just thought that that candidate needed to be somebody who could win Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania and that a candidate from California with approval ratings as bad as Biden's was not the best bet.
But then Harris went about making a second first impression and she surprised me and a lot of other skeptical Democrats. She was like a new person. Confident, self-assured, positive, almost light-hearted. A happy warrior. Like Hubert Humphrey. And speaking of Minnesota's first vice president, she went on to pick the gopher governor Tim Walz as her running mate. Walz, like Harris herself, was not my first choice. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro was my top pick for both spots on the ticket. I guess I wanted Shapiro and Shapiro.
Let me digress here. Why don't we do it this way all the time? Anybody enjoy the three-year slog that is a presidential contest? What's so great about a handful of states which, by the simple virtue of the calendar, get to pick the two people out of 350 million who we get to vote for? How is that democratic? What's so great about a primary system that produced Donald Trump and Joe Biden when the majority of Americans couldn't stand either man? A closed system picked an exciting candidate with a much better chance of winning and it was done at no cost and in record time. End of digression.
Now Harris and Walz are waltzing around the country with a whole new attitude. Whereas Biden crept to the podium to darkly denounce threats on American democracy, Harris/Walz bound up to the stage and look like they’re having fun. They seem to see Trump/Vance as less existential threat than just curious, even "weird." They seem to be saying to voters, “you and I are too smart to even take these guys seriously.” And so far it's working. It's working so well that it's driving Trump up a wall, which is half the fun.
Now, Harris leads Trump by a not insignificant four points in those three magic states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. And that may understate it, as the New York Times/Siena poll was taken mostly before Walz — who should play well in all three states — was announced as Harris' choice. (I ordered my Harris/Walz camo hunting camp from Etsy only because the official campaign merch wouldn't arrive until October. What's up with that?)
Which brings us back to music. It's like this. Harris has proven that she can take in information, evaluate her strengths and weaknesses and adapt to what's called for in the moment. Excellent for a candidate and vital for a president. Trump cannot do any of these things.
Harris can sit in front of the political piano and play a sonata or do a jazz riff as demanded. Whatever will sound sweet to the audience and is appropriate for the current mood. Trump sits before the piano and bangs out one note. It's all he knows how to play. And when the audience doesn't seem to like it, he just hits the same key harder.
I know. A lot can happen in 80 days. But right now I like the sound of this.
Dave Cieslewicz is a Madison- and Upper Peninsula-based writer who served as mayor of Madison from 2003 to 2011. You can read more of his work at Yellow Stripes & Dead Armadillos.
