No. of Recommendations: 1
Sure. She doesn't need to but that doesn't alter the fact that citizens deserve access to her policy positions in order to make informed decisions.
Of course. But not necessarily in the first 18 days of her campaign. She'll have to do it quickly, to be sure. While most modern Presidential campaigns have more than a year to get their white papers drafted, their websites updated, and their candidates fully prepped to explain and defend their policy positions, Harris will have (checks watch) 87 days from today.
As we discussed right after the Debate Debacle, the biggest disadvantage for a new Democratic nominee replacing Joe Biden would be starting from scratch with less than four months to go. They would have to "build a plane while flying it" - run a campaign while doing all the stuff that goes into creating a campaign, such as building an organization and vetting staff and working out strategy and policy positions.
This month - the month between Biden dropping out and the convention - was the time when Harris would be least prepared to deal with incoming political fire. It is the best opportunity the Trump campaign will have to define Harris the way they want to. It's just hard to see why there aren't Trump rallies all over the country between now and the convention. Even the Montana rally seems less strategically chosen as a way to define Harris, but more to go after John Tester (we'll see if he attacks Harris more than Tester) - a worthy aim for the GOP generally, but probably shouldn't be Trump's main focus right now.
Again, it's hard to understand why. I don't think Trump is hiding. He likes doing rallies and he certainly believes he's awesome at doing them. He called the press conference yesterday because he wanted to get out there, to put the focus on himself. He's entirely comfortable doing it. So I really don't understand why they're not doing more over the next two weeks.
