I wrote before about a very interesting interview that Rory Stewart had with David Remnick. Stewart was an ambitious Conservative politician in the UK who had all the traditional qualifications, coming from a privileged family, attending an elite private school (Eton) and then Oxford University. He quickly rose up the ranks and even made a bid to become party leader, losing out to Boris Johnson in 2019. He left the party just prior to Brexit.
The interview mainly dealt with what Stewart described as the soul-killing nature of political leadership but he also had interesting things to say about the general election that was due to held in the UK this year. Labour party leader Keir Starmer had been criticized for not detailing specific policies that he would implement if elected, choosing instead to speak in broad generalities. Stewart described this as the ‘Ming vase’ strategy, where you are holding a precious Ming vase and walk very carefully so as not to break it. Starmer had clearly decided that the country desperately wanted to throw the Tories out and were not that interested in specifics of Labour policies, having the general idea that they were more on the side of ordinary people than the Tories.. They had a general idea of what Labour stood for and that seemed to be enough. Starmer did not want to make specific promises that might alienate some voters and thus break that consensus. Stewart said that this can be a successful strategy for winning elections (as it was for Starmer) but can cause problems after you win office because you do not really have a mandate for anything specific.
Right now in the US, the media and the Republicans have started to demand that Kamala Harris hold a press conference outlining specific policies, something that she has so far not done.
Harris has also yet to hold a press conference or give an in-depth media interview to face difficult questions about her leadership style, her significantly changed policy positions in recent years, and the focus on gender and race that looms over her historic candidacy – a topic she was careful to swerve past in her acceptance speech.
…Harris used her acceptance speech to promise to pass a middle-class tax cut, support Ukraine and Nato, and push for a ceasefire in Israel’s war in Gaza. But for now, her team feels no urgency to publish a comprehensive policy platform or sit for media interviews that might jeopardize positive vibes that have produced a flood of campaign donations and a growing army of swing-state volunteers.
Part of the reason may be that Joe Biden stepped down just a little over a month ago, and she was officially made the nominee only on August 7th, so she has not had much time to craft a detailed platform
But I also wonder if she has adopted the Ming vase strategy that worked well for Starmer. She may feel that the main driver for her candidacy is not that people are enthused about her personally (many people did not know much about her until last month, such is the role of the vice-president) or care that much about what precisely she will do but desperately want to prevent creepy Donald Trump from returning to the presidency. People generally know that the Democrats will be more liberal in their policies, more LGBTQ-friendly, support abortion rights, and so on, and that may be enough. The vase has generated a lot of enthusiasm for her so far, so why risk breaking it?
She will at some point give a press conference. If her responses are somewhat generic, that may suggest that she has adopted the Ming vase strategy.
Politicians tend to have forgotten what they promised before an election by the morning after it. So why bother? /s
As an anecdote, before she was elected for the fourth time as German chancellor, Angela Merkel’s election campaign comprised: “You know me.”
It’s almost as if Harris is taking the business of winning seriously and doesn’t take it for granted. And has the sense to learn from the example of others. Sounds like she’s going to make a good President.
Hi Mano -- I just read a similar article that made the same points. I personally find it encouraging that the democrats seem to be getting wise to this game.
https://bad-faith-times.ghost.io/democrats-are-saying-no-to-leslie-knope-politics/
The situations in the US and UK are of course different. In the UK, the platform is also officially defined by the party manifesto, which is a very specific document which is widely available and unambiguous. Further, in the UK, the concept of a mandate is very specific. The House of Lords feels honor bound to approve legislation put in the mandate. The US situation is entirely informal. Decades ago, the opposition would slightly back off and let the President get some bills from his platform. Now, since Gingrich in 1994, that doesn’t happen. Every vote in Congress gets the votes it gets, and the media never chides the opposition for opposing the mandate. So between the GOP and the media, the concept of a mandate here is now meaningless. No point. It’s just whatever helps win in November.
That’s why in 2016, Hillary was equally vague. It’s modern life. Get used to it, or reform the media.
i don’t even get the point of naming it a strategy. it’s a pattern u could point to that emerges naturally from the same strategy all national politicians have followed in the usa for decades now -- manage message to minimize harm. only the current age of increased radicalism makes that look at all unusual, even tho it remains the norm across the aisle.
@MattF #3:
I’m not encouraged by the further trend away from truth, if there was ever any truth in politics. The hype now is that gaming the system is the only logical way to win, and ergo the future must be one of ever more hand-waving and lies. But that’s ok if the Democrats jump on the same bandwagon? I’m unconvinced. It may indeed be a winning strategy, but not for the voters.
Once there is truly no substance and voters have only idealogical lines to choose from, you will never again be sure of what you’re voting for, only that it won’t be what you want.
Kang or Kodos? https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AuYsZUMuj0M
I find it amusing that the party that has nominated Donald Trump as their candidate for 3 straight elections is demanding that Harris detail her POLICIES. Like, seriously. She may be more of a “vibes candidate” than Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden (although I’d put her on par with Obama -- he had no problem winning on vibes, explaining his plans in broad strokes, but never going into detail…hope and change, baby!), but she pales in comparison to Trump. He always speaks in broad generalities, relying on triggering emotional reactions in his base, getting them to believe in him without ever actually having to do anything concrete to justify that belief -- he hates the things they hate, and that’s enough. Never does he get down to brass tacks about how to accomplish those plans (build the wall, stop illegal immigration, stop China’s rise to global dominance, etc.). Going into specifics would require actually understanding how to get things done in the bureaucracy that is the US government, with its Constitution, and all of those pesky rules of law, not to mention the international treaties it is party to, AND the fact that so many of the powerful people in America are benefiting from the status quo, and have no interest in changing a damn thing (and they generally finance the political campaigns of both parties). It is good to see the Democrats finally realizing what the GOP have known for so long -- most people don’t vote for you because they like your policies. They vote for you because they like how you make them FEEL.
Specific proposals are for serious conversations.
You can’t have serious conversations with hostile liars.
On the one hand, Harris DOES have reasonably specific policies on things like price gouging, prescription drug pricing, immigration, and gun control (or at least has policy positions that can be confidently inferred from her past). It’s nonsense to say that she has no specific policies. Meanwhile, Trump’s policy talk on the economy basically amounts to, “inflation bad, look at how bad it is, totally not my fault and definitely Joe’s fault somehow.” The only effect of going after Harris for not having specific policies is to divert attention to Trump’s complete lack of policies.
On the other hand, Harris’s ability to actually do anything depends on Congress, and nobody knows what either the House or the Senate will look like in January. We could have Project 2025 Lite even if we have Harris in the oval office. And even if just one chamber has an R majority, that will block any significant policies she wants to pass.
There is a risk of the Democrats falling 1 senator short, judging by the analysis I found online. We may have to put our hope in Texas voters getting mobilised enough to bring down the odious Ted Cruz, which is a long shot.
But -to the benefit of Americans- SSADT has a talent for antagonising every demographic, which may help Harris and down-ballot Democrats win hispanic voters.
Jeez. Four years ago, I thought 45 would be way too discredited to be a threat. As a German newspaper wrote 2016 “Bitte nicht dem horror-clown!”
Actually, Starmer’s strategy (which was not quite as policy-empty as implied -- it was quite clear he was going to run a Tory-lite administration, as indeed he is doing) succeeded almost purely because the far right Reform Party UK Ltd. took a lot more votes from the Tories than from Labour -- and thus the “First Past the Post” electoral system produced the grossly undemocratic result of almost 2/3 of the seats for Labour on just over 1/3 of the vote. Fewer people actually voted for Starmer’s Labour in 2024 than for Corbyn’s Labour in the disastrous defeat of 2019, so his strategy certainly didn’t generate a lot of enthusiasm. So the lessons for Harris are far from clear, particularly as the overall situation is very different: Starmer had been leader for 4 years, had a huge poll lead (approaching 20%) for the year and a half before the election (he ended up with “only” a 10% lead), and anyone with more brain than a cuckoo clock knew he was going to win. Even had Kennedy stayed in, him competing for the creepy weirdo vote would presumably have had only a small effect on the result in Harris’s favour, and now he’s endorsed Trump (in the 2019 UK election something similar happened as Nigel Farage withdrew his candidates from Tory-held seats -- but only those).
I see rumors SSADT is about to pull out of the debate with Harris. A debate was more likely to harm him than Harris, so for once he has acted in a logical way
re birgerjohansson @12: The Orange Fool had said he wanted THREE debates scheduled, with one on Fox a necessary part of the deal for him. Harris wisely would not agree to any other debates until after the September 10 debate on ABC. He almost assuredly would have skipped out on the ABC debate if Harris had agreed to other debates with conditions more favorable to himself. Now, he is running scared because he knows that she will probably wipe the floor with him.
By contrast, conservatives have a lengthy and detailed policy plan, but they distance themselves from it due to how repellant and unpopular it is.
Also, here is a Majority Report video showing Kamala Harris answering a “How are you going to pay for it” question…
The media isn’t in a position to demand anything when they routinely write well poisoning dreck like this:
Difficult questions? Maybe if the media would spend some time asking Rump difficult questions we wouldn’t be having to deal with MAGA nonsense in the first place.
Instead they keep pretending that they are completely not biased, though it’s bleeding obvious that they are owned by billionaires who just happen to be white make supremacists just like their rapist leader.
I also doubt Harris has significantly changed positions or that she swerved past racism in her acceptance speech.
The uncouth person who is blowing the bigot dog whistles should be asked those very difficult questions about why he keeps trying to focus on Kamala’s race and gender. “She turned black.”
All women and POC are not required to explain sexism and racism to the incompetent, or entitled. Neither is Kamala Harris.
Ignoring the media is a good strategy when they demonstrate their lack of ethics daily. The policies of the Dem candidates are easily found on their social media and web sites. Odd how reporters can’t find them.