Subject: Re: Priorities
Al, as a political scientist who has studied and conducted research on voters and elections for more than 50 years, let me simply say that your distinction between issue priorities and issue positions is one that eludes 98.5% of ordinary Americans.

I'm sure that's true. I doubt anyone's actually talking about Harris in these terms when sitting around the kitchen table.

But I think it's the main reason that Harris has an "I don't know what she stands for" problem. That's a big problem she's facing. It's a big enough concern that Michele Obama, in her speech trying to rally support for Harris, felt the need to address it:

Speaking directly to the stark gender divide that polls show is a feature of this presidential campaign, Obama railed against “the lie that we do not know who Kamala is or what she stands for”....

https://www.npr.org/2024/10/26...

Voters are saying they don't know where Harris' mind is at on a lot of things. They certainly know it on abortion, but I don't think they know it on many other matters - including any economic matters.

Obama's defense is to call that a lie (and implicitly root it in sexism). But I kind of get the same feeling, and I already voted for her. I don't know what her deal is. I know she's not Trump, and on virtually any economic issue she'd have close to the same position as Standard Generic Democrat. But what's going to be the big thing she takes on as her signature domestic economic issue? I don't know.

I didn't need to know - and I'm pretty cynical about the ability of Presidents to have much of an impact on economic issues without a supermajority in the Senate anyway. So I don't entirely care. But I think that a lot of the voters that are saying that they don't know what Harris stands for are expressing that concern.