Candidates and their campaigns hire advisors and consultants and they're no doubt bombarded with suggestions from their supporters. With so many good ideas to choose from one wonders how and why some campaigns step on one rake after another.

It’s been said that a campaign’s best weapon is its own candidate. That may not always be true. After staging their coup in July, supporters of and staffers in the 2024 Kamala Harris campaign may have convinced her to avoid interviews. There were at least two problems with this tactic. The first is that while it may have worked for Joe Biden, he could at least blame it on COVID. The second was that it represented a no-win situation for Harris. People complained she wasn’t speaking out, and when she did speak she was incoherent. The more she said the less people liked her.

In contrast, Donald Trump speaks at great length to people across a wide spectrum of political ideologies, classes, income levels, and belief systems. He speaks onstage at rallies extemporaneously for hours. While making use of teleprompters he would frequently go off-script, expound on something and then eventually return to his original point. He calls it "weaving."

Kamala can’t do that. She often repeats some phrase she thinks is profound, speaks in bumper sticker slogans or wanders off into a meaningless word salad. Net semantic content? Zero. 

Towards the end of both campaigns Trump and Harris both began doing interviews with podcasters. In Trump's case it was on the advice of his 18-year-old son, Barron. He reportedly told his father that he and his friends don't follow the legacy news media, instead monitoring podcasts such as the “Joe Rogan Experience” and “This Past Weekend” with Theo Von. He suggested his father go on some of those shows. It worked. Half of American men under aged 30 ended up voting for Donald Trump.

James Carville, aka "The Ragin' Cajun" once again earned his nickname when he went on a tirade telling young progressive staffers that he "...doesn't give a sh*t what you think." It's too late to close that barn door, Jimmy. Kamala went on the "Call her Daddy" podcast which is a lewd, feminist pro-abortion program. The host focused most of the interview on abortion, which interests some but not all voters. Reactions to her appearance among followers of the show were mixed. Alienating portions of your own base is hardly a recipe for success.

Continuing to heed advice from his son, Trump spent 90 minutes on the “Flagrant” podcast hosted by comedians Andrew Schulz, Akaash Singh, Mark Gagnon, and Alexx Media. This was another fun, wide-ranging interview in which the participants traded good-natured barbs with each other, frequently erupting in laughter before returning to more sober subjects.

Harris meanwhile had difficulty even in friendly venues. On “The View” she told Sonny Hostin that she couldn't think of anything she wouldn't have done differently from Biden. Really? Afghanistan? Oprah Winfrey had to bring her back on point after she rambled for almost four minutes on how she would fix the problem at the border, without mentioning a single concrete policy. Watch the video if you can stand listening to this woman try to speak for that long.  

Compare that to Trump’s visit to a Bronx barbershop. He was greeted somewhat cautiously by the patrons and the proprietors before engaging them in an honest discussion on kitchen table issues. Afterwards they complimented him, saying he was authentic and they wished more politicians were like him.

It turns out that Barron Trump, his siblings and his friends as well as Trump staffers are more in touch with what average Americans are thinking and feeling than Kamala’s advisors. Maybe they need to get out more. James Carville, the Kamala staff and the denizens of the DNC are isolated in their bubble, suffering from TDS and perhaps confirmation- and normalcy bias.

Things may be changing soon. There are rumors that the Trump 47 Administration will be inviting more podcasters and independent media into the Brady Press Room. Legacy media personalities and the DNC may hear what us normies, deplorables, and bitter clingers are thinking whether they want to or not.

In the meantime, will the Left continue to take advice from their fringe constituencies or will they reflect on what’s happening and make appropriate adjustments? Any movement towards the center for them is a movement to the right, which they abhor. They’ve expelled moderates like Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. Are there no Blue Dog Democrats left? Who are they listening to?

In a match-up between Barron Trump and James Carville, right now my money’s on the kid.

Image: Voice of America