Big question mark

Kamala Harris' big question mark

She's connecting with audiences — sometimes to a fault.

By CHRISTOPHER CADELAGO

Monica Reyes had a straightforward question for Kamala Harris: What’s your strategy to help immigrant workers gain U.S. citizenship — people like her mother, who fled domestic abuse in Mexico, sold blankets at county fairs and then opened a shop in Iowa?

But rather that diving into a detailed immigration plan, Harris asked for the name of Reyes’ mother — Brenda. “She sounds extraordinary,” Harris said. “I think it’s important in this room, while we’re having a discussion about who will be the president of the United States, that we speak her name.”

The Democrat reiterated the need for comprehensive immigration reform, then veered into generalities about immigration policy, never directly answering Reyes’ question.

The exchange at a gathering of Latino and Asian activists at the state Capitol last weekend illustrates Harris’ capacity to convey warmth and relate deeply with her audiences. But it also underscores a familiar tic for a candidate who, despite building a reputation as one of the Senate's toughest interrogators and vaulting ahead of most of the 2020 field, remains a politician under construction.

Harris is a product of California campaigns, where TV ads and name ID are king. So one of the biggest unknowns about Harris is whether she can consistently nail the retail and performance pieces of presidential campaigning — and at the same time exhibit the nimbleness and policy depth to match the very high expectations she’s already being held to.

In interviews, two dozen political strategists, elected officials and Democratic activists and voters — most of whom watched Harris’ events in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina — said she’s shown promise as someone who can connect with voters at an emotional level. The excitement she's generating and her profile as a charismatic, mixed-race progressive, they said, is creating a sense that she may be the candidate who best matches the mood of Democratic voters at this moment.

But in her early-state debuts, Harris has at times compensated for her lack of precision and detailed policy prescriptions by lapsing into prepared remarks, turning to legislation she supports — even when it indirectly relates to the question — and leaning on anecdotes to connect with audiences.

She’s been noncommittal or vague on a range of issues. And she’s had to walk back or elaborate on answers she gave in the moment, on everything from eliminating private insurers to her response to actor Jussie Smollett’s alleged deception.

“I liked her,” said Mike McCauley, an Obama campaign and administration veteran from South Carolina. At the Harris event he attended, McCauley said he overheard people saying "it felt like Obama again."

“She has a sense of humor, and her laugh is utterly disarming,” he said. “However,” he added, “I thought she lacked specifics.”

Harris' launch in front of a massive crowd in Oakland and big early fundraising haul helped lift her in polls and build intrigue, which in turn has made her a major draw in Iowa and New Hampshire. At a recent event in Portsmouth, N.H., one woman told Harris she decided to come after being wowed by her CNN town hall performance.

And Harris’ delivery and pitch on the stump, a mix of optimism and fight summed up by her line “we are better than this,” has impressed.

“Her overall message is well developed,” said Claire Celsi, an Iowa state senator and presidential campaign veteran, predicting it “will resonate with the progressive base here in Iowa.”

Harris isn’t the first relative newcomer on the national scene to have to work out early kinks. Yet she’ll have to overcome a history of intermittent glitches while under the glaring spotlight of a presidential race.

“You learn about yourself,” McCauley said of the pressure environment. “And you learn how to be yourself.”

Harris, a career prosecutor whose prep sessions can be exhaustive, has improved noticeably over each of her previous campaigns in California. It’s been more than 15 years since she went neighborhood-to-neighborhood seeking votes in her upset win for San Francisco district attorney.

By the time Harris ran for California attorney general in 2009, she did some retail campaigning — hitting churches and barber shops in Los Angeles, for example — but it was mostly confined to occasional weekend appearances. Her reelection and Senate races were cakewalks.

In the past, she’s avoided the media and sometimes come off as too programmed. After announcing the Senate run in 2015, Harris waited more than a month-and-a-half to give her first interviews, contending she was focused on her day job running the Department of Justice.

Harris held what the invitation billed as a “campaign kickoff,” but barred media from attending the event.

When Harris did give the occasional interview, she was prone to slip-ups. For example, she wasn't familiar with two proposed Northern California reservoirs that have been a source of fighting for over a decade. And she tripped herself up by confusing a major statewide water infrastructure system known as the “twin tunnels” with the ordinary underground passageways that motorists drive through.

But the mistakes, which were minor compared with her gaffe-prone opponent, were mostly shrugged off by reporters and the public.

That changed when she arrived in Washington.

At a town hall event in California last year, Harris said “it depends” when she was asked whether she would take money from corporate PACs. She acknowledged in a later interview with “The Breakfast Club” radio show that she wasn’t anticipating the question and used the program to categorically swear off such contributions.

Harris’ presidential campaign has not shielded her from the press. In addition to entertainment shows, the senator has sat for several cable TV interviews and done a number of press gaggles with the reporters following her around. But as these early weeks of the race have shown, the openness cuts both ways for her.

In January, after Smollett claimed he was attacked by two Trump supporters who poured bleach on him and put a rope around his neck, Harris issued a tweet calling the alleged hate crime an “attempted modern day lynching.” Smollett, who black and gay, was arrested for falsifying a police report.

Asked about the tweet amid mounting reports casting doubt on Smollett’s original story, Harris paused for several awkward seconds, appearing confused, then turned around as she looked toward her aides. Her “um” filled answer ricocheted around social media and was picked up by cable TV talkers.

“I think that the facts are still unfolding, and I'm very concerned about obviously, the initial allegation that he made about what might have happened,” Harris said, adding, “I think that once the investigation has concluded then we can all comment, but I’m not going to comment until I know the outcome of the investigation.”

At the CNN town hall, Harris made headlines by saying she favored a single-payer health care and effectively ends private insurance. “Let’s eliminate all of that,” Harris said. She since emphasized a Medicare for all program would preserve private insurers for supplemental coverage.

Asked at her own town hall Saturday in Ankeny, Iowa, whether she favored eliminating the filibuster, Harris started out with a joke.

“That’s a great question," she said. "Let’s change the subject!”

She made arguments that are somewhat related to both sides of the filibuster debate, including that there’s merit to upholding the integrity of the system, but ultimately concluded that she’s “conflicted.”

Said Harris: “Sorry, I can’t give you more than that right now.”