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Simple prediction: The clear winner of Tuesday night’s Presidential debate should call the movers and make a reservation to move into that cute little 16 bedroom house on Pennsylvania Avenue. I hear it needs a good deal of work given that the last two occupants were on the older side and spent a lot of time away. But still, it’s a nice place with a good central location and easy access to parks, historical sites, and shopping.
But enough of real estate and back to the debate.
Predictions are tough enough in general, but predictions when it comes to an election with Donald Trump, like the candidate himself, don’t go by the rules. Still, some are easy and some are hard. The easiest of all is that we know with virtually 100% certainty how the majority of states will cast their electoral votes. If it’s even close in Massachusetts or California, a tight race in Wyoming or Oklahoma, then, yes, we ought to be checking the voting machines very closely.
This leads to another self-evident prediction: The winner of this election will have prevailed in enough of those seven or so purple-ish swing states to come out on top. Those races are tight now and will be tight on election night—tight enough so that the Trumpster will undoubtedly refuse to concede.
Then what strategy should Harris adopt to decide this election on Tuesday evening a put a winning bid down on that charmnding Pennsylvania Avenue property? First, I’ll go the chicken’s route and explain what she should not do. And that one is easy—whatever Biden did, do the opposite. Besides not looking dumbfounded or confused, which we can pretty well assure that Kamala will not, some of the fault lay with Biden’s prep people rather than the onset of dementia.
First, don’t–repeat, don’t–cling to the Biden record. Joe went on and on spouting the bills he had passed and his legislative policies, missing numerous opportunities to attack his opponent and only inviting Trump to tell us what a hell hole the US has become under his watch. And second, decide on a closing argument. Biden was actually coherent in presenting the closing statement that his prep people must have given him, but it was an absolute stinker. Use your experience as a DA and channel a closing argument that will, in effect, “prove” that the bastard is guilty as sin. Be sure to sum up in a way that will convince the jury to vote to put the defendant behind bars (which is to say, quite literally, that that’s where he’ll be if he loses).
Kamala, be upbeat and appealing, but don’t hesitate to attack, to mock, to put the unfitness of your opponent at the center. Remind us that the rambling assertions of this liar are made up out of thin air. Let us know who you are and draw a contrast between the average folks who will benefit under you vs those who will prosper under silver-spoon Donald’s regime. Let us know that America is already great and that Trump is nothing but a two-bit bully who goes after the weak but cowers before foreign dictators.
And, by all means, don’t worry too much about answering the questions asked. Your opponent won’t, so don’t hesitate to say, “David, thanks for asking me about the southern border, but first I’d like to respond to my opponent’s false statement about…” Then go on at length about whatever you’ve been scripted to say.
In short, Kamala, deliver body blows and a couple of shots to the chin, float like a butterfly and sting like a bee. But while you’re doing it, smile, smile, smile. Do what you can to avoid those nasty and unfortunate stereotypes about strong women, the biases that are as unfair as they are still common. But give him hell. We are in the last round of a championship fight, and it can and will be won decisively with a strong closing. The momentum has been all yours since Joe stepped aside, and this is your shot to score a knockout–to be honest, even a technical knockout will do. I predict that you have the goods to get into the heads of all those who are, unbelievably, still undecided and/or persuasible, and that you can and will end the nightmare that is Donald Trump.
Good luck to you, Madame-President-to-be. I’ve got great confidence in you. And, by the way, I’ve already picked out a wonderful house-warming present for the Lincoln bedroom in that pretty white house of yours.
