Kamala Harris’ style-over-substance campaign praised by journalists: ‘It’s a vibes election’
Mainstream media hosts and pundits are not only admitting that newly minted Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris’ campaign is about style over substance, but they are actively celebrating it.
Journalists and commentators from CNN, CBS News and other outlets floated the idea that Harris not doing a formal interview since President Biden dropped out of the race more than a month ago and avoiding laying out detailed policy proposals is actually a good thing for her campaign.
As CNN anchor Kasie Hunt put it on Thursday, "It’s a vibes election."
DNC ATTENDEES STRUGGLE TO NAME THEIR FAVORITE HARRIS POLICY: ‘LIKE HER AS A PERSON’
During the last day of the Democratic National Convention, CNN coverage featured Democratic leaders telling viewers that Harris doesn’t need to spell out where she stands on important issues because Americans "don’t vote" based on that information. Network anchors seemed okay with the notion in this context.
CNN anchor Manu Raju began the discussion on Thursday afternoon, noting that some Democratic Party members are "concerned about her doing [interviews] that could potentially trip her up and give Trump some ammunition. In fact, a lot of those Democrats I spoke to today said, ‘Avoid those policy prescriptions.’"
The outlet then played a montage of elected Democrats telling him that on the DNC floor.
After the soundbites, Raju addressed his fellow anchors. "So, there’s a belief, that perhaps if you put more ideas on paper, that's a bad idea. But the question is, do voters want to see some of those ideas?"
Anchor Kasie Hunt seemed to admit the strategy was fine, saying, "Maybe. If you go with the vibes, it’s a vibes election." Her colleague Erin Burnett agreed, stating, "That’s right."
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During CNN coverage the previous night, Burnett asked radio host Charlamagne Tha God if Harris’ strategy of avoiding talking to the press about her policies was a good one.
"She hasn’t done a big interview in a while here and certainly not since announcing. Are you going to talk to her soon? What do you think? What do you think she should do? Or does she do better to ignore all those calls to talk and just keep doing what she’s doing?" she asked.
The "Breakfast Club" host replied that "what she's been doing has worked because you know what she's been doing is hitting the ground."
The Atlantic senior editor and CNN senior political analyst Ron Brownstein told CNN anchors on Friday morning that the content of Harris’ DNC speech didn’t even matter that much, compared to the feeling of "change" that just came off her during the address.
"I think she could have done more in some areas, particularly talking about inflation and helping people meet cost of living, but she had the great asset of embodying her message. If you’re talking about a fresh start and turning the page, you almost didn‘t have to listen to anything she said. She radiated change in the way she presented herself last night," Brownstein said.
Anchor Sara Sidner corroborated his notion that there wasn’t anything to remember from the speech beyond the feeling it gave off.
"When you sit back and think about lines from the speech, you can‘t remember a line, but you remember something. What is it people would take away from that because we can remember lines for Michelle Obama. Yeah, we can remember lines from Barack Obama, but not necessarily this speech. This did something else. What was that?" she asked.
"This was energy, strength and change," Brownstein replied.
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CBS News anchor Tony Dokoupil appeared to sum up the style-over-substance nature of Harris’ speech Thursday night while reporting from the DNC floor. As balloons floated around him and attendees cheered the conclusion of the vice president’s speech, the journalist reported, "I will leave the reviewing of the content to you. The emotion and the feeling down here is – I don't know – seven-year-old's birthday party is how I would put it."
"There is joy and there's not a lot of thinking! It's a good time!" he said to his colleagues back in the newsroom.
Fox News Digital's Hanna Panreck and Lindsay Kornick contributed to this report.