Opinion | The Political Cost to Kamala Harris of Not Answering Direct Questions

When Kamala Harris sat down for just the second major television interview of her campaign last week with the Philadelphia ABC affiliate, the anchor asked her to outline “one or two specific things” she would do to fulfill her pledge of “bringing down prices and making life more affordable for people.” She responded by recalling how she was “a middle-class kid” who grew up in a community of construction workers, nurses and teachers who were “very proud of their lawn.” She recounted her mother’s saving to buy her family’s first house. She paid tribute to a neighbor who became a surrogate parent. She praised the “beautiful character” of the American people.

Only then, after nearly two minutes, did Ms. Harris outline her plan for a $50,000 tax credit for start-up small businesses; private-sector tax breaks to spark construction of three million housing units over four years; and $25,000 in federal down payment assistance for first-time home buyers.

It’s a shibboleth of modern political strategy that candidates should answer the questions they want to, not the ones that are asked, and Ms. Harris faces a unique challenge in this truncated presidential race of introducing herself to an electorate that in many ways still barely knows her. So she might be forgiven for leading with a blizzard of atmospheric biographical detail that makes some voters feel they can’t trust her to answer a direct question.

But in a campaign in which Donald Trump fills our days with arrant nonsense and dominates the national discussion (and polls show a tight race where Ms. Harris is running behind Joe Biden’s level of support in 2020 with some groups), the vice president can’t afford to stick only to rehearsed answers and stump speeches that might not persuade voters or shape what America is talking about.

Writing about politicians for decades has convinced me that direct, succinct answers and explanations from Ms. Harris would go a long way — perhaps longer than she realizes — toward persuading voters that they know enough about her and her plans, which polling surveys now suggest they don’t (yet badly want to). Being known as a straight shooter would also help persuade restive political elites, pundits and journalists that Ms. Harris is grappling with such scrutiny, and I think she’s apt to be rewarded in the end for it.

To be sure, there may be times when Ms. Harris’s best strategy is to stay out of Mr. Trump’s way. But his recent cats-and-dogs attacks on immigrants, and even his angry accusations that Democrats are to blame for the two attempts on his own life, are once again letting Mr. Trump dominate the news cycle after Ms. Harris’s extraordinary convention-to-debate liftoff. And as unhinged as they are, Mr. Trump’s outbursts raise issues of salience and vulnerabilities for Ms. Harris. Perverse as it seems, history has shown that whenever Mr. Trump is the subject of a sentence, he somehow usually manages to benefit.

I’ve spent my career watching what presidents, other elected officials and candidates do, not telling them how to do it. I know friends and neighbors who could ask better questions than professional interviewers. But over the years, I have gleaned an appreciation for what works in campaigns and what doesn’t, and the strongest candidates are the ones who do not just endure but prevail in sustained exposure.

Ms. Harris won her party’s nomination in the strangest deus ex machina in American history, not through steady testing in the crucible of primaries. The best evidence suggests that millions of Americans still have questions for her and want to see her fighting for the job, continuing to define herself and her priorities, and not ceding precious oxygen to Mr. Trump’s distractions.

Ms. Harris’s aides say she intends to take more questions, in settings of her choice, and she should. Questions can be crystallizing.

Mario Cuomo’s opposition to the death penalty was politically unpopular, but he won wide praise for his no-nonsense answers about it: He just thought it was wrong.

Bill Clinton earned a reputation for occasional slipperiness, but he was the past master of the empathetic answer that made people feel sure he’d heard them and shared their concerns. Mr. Clinton sailed against the left wing of his own party on issues like welfare and profited from it, because he coupled the promise of “opportunity” with the requirement of “responsibility.” He may well have won the 1992 election in that memorable moment in his town hall debate with George H.W. Bush and Ross Perot when he understood that a voter’s confusing question about the deficit was really about economic dislocation — and began his answer to the question by asking her to elaborate on her concerns.

There is ample reason for politicians to avoid reporters’ questions: They can cause bad trouble. Mr. Clinton was shocked during his transition into office when he answered a reporter’s seemingly innocuous query about whether he’d fulfill his campaign pledge to let gay troops serve openly in the military by saying, of course, that he wanted to. Whether it should have or not, his answer shocked the Pentagon brass and members of Congress, who raised a firestorm that consumed Mr. Clinton’s early days in office. When David Dinkins was mayor of New York in a moment of surging crime, he made the mistake of repeating the exact words of a reporter’s leading question to declare that the Big Apple was “not Dodge City,” prompting blaring headlines that hurt him badly.

If Ms. Harris thinks the press just wants to play gotcha — and believe me, she has a point — then she should take questions from everyday voters — even hostile ones — in town halls. The single best moment of John McCain’s 2008 campaign came when he firmly shut down a questioner who called Barack Obama “an Arab.” Ms. Harris’s answers would surely show more than just how she thinks on her feet: They could show what excites her, touches her heart, makes her mad, inspires her vision. Her convention speech and debate performance have already shown how well she can do with diligent preparation. There’s no reason to assume she wouldn’t get steadily better on the fly, with practice.

In fact, in an interview with reporters from the National Association of Black Journalists on Tuesday, she effectively reversed the order of her answer to the Philadelphia anchor on the economy: She started with her policy plans, then her biographical bona fides. She answered a question about whether she felt safe on the campaign trail with a crisp “I do,” but then pivoted to say that she understood how many Americans without the privilege of Secret Service protection did not feel safe.

So let her deploy that thousand-watt smile — and the same sharp focus she flashed in questioning Brett Kavanaugh and Bill Barr. If voters want to know whether they can trust her, only she can reassure them.

For better or worse, questions — and usually the very hardest ones — come with the job of being president. When voters say they need to know more about Ms. Harris, I think part of what they are really saying is that they want to know more about how she would be as president, as well as what she would do. What would it be like to have her in their living rooms and on their devices for four years? How would she roll with the punches? How would she react in a crisis? How would she respond to their concerns, fears, hopes, dreams, desires — and, yes, criticisms? Listening closely, and answering questions — clearly, early and often — is inevitably a part of passing that test.

Ms. Harris has already demonstrated her singular ability to get under Mr. Trump’s skin. Why wouldn’t frequent, measured demonstrations of her even temperament and understanding of voters’ anxieties buttress her case that she’s an inviting alternative to four more years of what she succinctly calls Mr. Trump’s “same old show”?

Ms. Harris seems fearful of explaining the shifts in her views since her failed 2020 presidential campaign. In her debate with Mr. Trump, she said she wanted to, and then largely didn’t. I’m not sure she should be so worried: She’s had nearly four years in office in which her theoretical thinking — on topics from fracking, to gun control, to “Medicare for all” — has evolved in practice. One person’s flip-flop is another’s proof of a stateswoman’s maturation. Why not own it?

Todd S. Purdum is a former White House correspondent and Los Angeles bureau chief for The Times and has written about politics for the Atlantic, Politico and Vanity Fair.

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