No. of Recommendations: 9
But she's not out to win debates, she's out to win the Presidency. The biggest gripe about Harris is that she's a flip flopper who won't disclose what she actually thinks. Voters believe she's hiding something - namely, a set of really radical views (which she is, no matter how hard she tries to pass herself off as a moderate).
That's your biggest gripe about Harris. Or perhaps not your biggest, but it's certainly something you really dislike about her.
But that's the needle that every Presidential candidate has to thread - the dilemma between really nailing down the specifics on an issue vs. just giving people a general sense of where you are.
Consider Trump on abortion to see the dilemma independent of Harris. Perhaps independent voters believe that he's hiding something on abortion - namely, a set of really radical views on federal abortion policy. Even if that's true, Trump is not going to advance his chances of winning the Presidency by resolving that concern. Because there's no concrete answer that he can give that's better than equivocating. If he says he wouldn't veto a federal abortion limitation at six (or even fifteen) weeks, he'll alienate almost everybody (that's an unpopular position generally, and it will also be unpopular among the hard core GOP pro-life base). But if he comes out and says that he would veto such a bill, then his base will go crazy on him. His best strategy is to vaguely signal that he's more supportive of the Generic Republican Position on Abortion, rather than get in the weeds.
The same is almost certainly true of Harris. On some things, she was very concrete. Take fracking. She said she won't ban fracking - unequivocably. She emphasized that the Administration hasn't banned fracking, and indeed the IRA had provisions for more fracking. That's something that will annoy part of her base (I can picture Sunrise cringing at that), but is generally a popular position.
Now - you're never going to believe her. You're going to be certain that deep down inside, she's actually just hiding radical views on fracking. But for viewers like you, there's nothing she can do - nothing she says in the campaign will convince some people. Her goal is to reach the viewers who are open to learning more about her views - and to express those views at the level of generalities, rather than concrete proposals.
