“The risk that she will make a fatal mistake is high” – L’Express

Amid the chorus of praise for Kamala Harris after her debate with Donald Trump, there are voices in the United States that have been less effusive. Notably, unsurprisingly, in the conservative camp. Columnist Peter Roff is one of them. This long-time observer of American political life makes no secret of it: “I have prejudices, but I always try to be impartial.” In his latest editorial published in Newsweek“Trump was Trump, and Harris didn’t improve her chances of victory during the debate”, this journalist analyzes the reasons why, according to him, the Democratic candidate is far from having folded the match during this face-off followed by some 67 million Americans. “Not making a mistake and being able to say ‘I won the debate because I didn’t make a mistake’ is not enough”, believes Peter Roff, who is not always tender with the former Republican president. But Americans, already accustomed to his controversial statements, will more easily forgive potential gaffes between now and November, he believes. Unlike Kamala Harris, whose “lack of experience” gives her “a huge opportunity to make a fatal error”.

Interview with a conservative whose frank speech has the merit of exposing what the current vice-president of the United States still lacks to move up a level. While recognizing one quality in her: that of being “passionate”.

L’Express: The majority of observers agree that Kamala Harris largely won the duel against Trump on September 10. Not you…

Peter Roff: Many people think that Trump lost the debate because Harris appeared more polished, more professional, somehow more dignified. That’s right. Now let me ask you this: What is everyone talking about now, days after that debate? It’s certainly not the $25,000 homebuyer grant that Kamala Harris promised. It’s not the $6,000 tax break that she’s proposing for a first child. It’s all about the chaos at the U.S.-Mexico border. And—you know what I mean—whether migrants are really eating cats and dogs in Springfield, Ohio. If days after the debate, that’s the only topic the country is talking about, then the candidate who brought it up is the one who won the debate.

Yet, according to polls conducted after the debate, American viewers believe that Kamala Harris dominated Donald Trump…

It is important to understand that the United States is a very divided country today. The ideological divide is superimposed on a class divide, between the elite and the rest of the population. What I am going to tell you will sound snobbish, but the debates between candidates are intended for highly educated people. Both by their nature and by the way they are formatted. In general, most of the questions asked by the moderators are not of direct interest to people. Consider, during the last debate, not a single question was asked about the failure of public schools in the United States.

Nor on licensing. So depending on your profession, if you move from New York to Iowa, for example, you have to get a new license. That’s a major obstacle for people moving to find work. Well, not a word in the debate. When you’re crafting the questions, you have to consider all sides. I’m not preaching to my own choir, but print journalists ask better questions than TV stars. (laughs).

In your opinion, Kamala Harris “has not scored the points needed to build the kind of lead that will allow her to last until November”…

In the 2008 campaign, Barack Obama put health care reform on the table and everyone talked about it. In 1996, Bill Clinton said he wanted to be “the architect of a bridge to the 21st century” and everyone looked to the future. Kamala Harris, on the other hand, did not make proposals that would have made the whole country say: “wow, I can get behind that.” She did not tire herself out. Not making mistakes and being able to say “I won the debate because I did not make mistakes” is not what will allow her to attract the crowds she needs to win the White House. If you look at the polls, at this point in the campaign, Kamala Harris is behind Hillary Clinton in 2016. She’s also behind Joe Biden in 2020. Conversely, Donald Trump is ahead of where the polls were at this point four years ago. I’m not saying that Kamala Harris can’t win in November. But in the debate, she didn’t win.

What do you think are the strengths and weaknesses of the Democratic candidate?

First of all, she’s never campaigned for such a high office, and she’s only been in the biggest race of her life for a month and a half. Running for president is tough. There’s so much to learn. Sure, Donald Trump had never run for anything before when he was elected in 2016, but he has a certain charisma. It’s not Kennedy charisma, it’s not Reagan charisma. I can’t really define it, but it’s there. Kamala Harris’s worst enemy is really her lack of experience on the national stage. I think that lack of experience alone gives her a huge opportunity to make a fatal mistake, like Gerald Ford did in 1976 against Jimmy Carter.

That’s to say ?

Things were very close between the two candidates in their second debate. Then the moderator asked a question about Poland and the Soviet Union. Incumbent President Gerald Ford (who was later defeated by Carter) clumsily responded, “There is no Soviet domination in Eastern Europe and there never will be under a Ford administration,” in the middle of the Cold War. And people talked about it for days. Now, remember, Ford had never run a national campaign before he entered the White House. (Editor’s note: Ford became president on August 8, 1974, after Nixon resigned.) He is the only man to have been head of state without ever being elected president or vice president. A lot of this was new to him. Similarly, Kamala Harris’s lack of experience can work against her. Donald Trump can make mistakes, but people are used to them by now. So he has a lot of room to mess up. Kamala Harris, however, does not have one.

The other problem for the Democratic candidate is that she is walking a tightrope. During the debate, Trump kept mentioning Biden? Why? Because he wants voters to think Biden-Harris, not Harris-Walz (Editor’s note: his running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz). Trump wants people to think about the last three and a half years, which in the eyes of many Americans have not been good. As a political professional I know very well said, if people go into the voting booth on Election Day thinking Biden-Harris rather than Harris-Walz, Trump will win.

I’m a conservative, but one of the things that drives me crazy about Trump is the way he acts or speaks in an unpresidential way. I don’t think it’s good for the office or the country. He’s fighting with people that the president of the United States shouldn’t be fighting with. He’s not behaving the way I would want the president to behave at all times. Well, Kamala Harris, for different reasons, is the same.

How so ?

Because of her demeanor, she also lacks presidential stature. It’s hard to describe, but there is both a self-awareness and a lack of self-awareness in her. And she clearly lacks that aura that surrounded Obama, Clinton, Reagan, and even the Bushes, father and son. I met several of them during my career. They were surrounded by a kind of gravity at all times. You could even sense it in Bill Clinton when he was jogging.

I would add that her grasp of the facts is, in some ways, as weak as Trump’s. Contrary to what she said in the debate, Kamala Harris is willing to use issues like race, gender, sexual orientation, and ethnicity to divide people. That, in my opinion, is what the American Democratic Party is doing. It’s identity politics. It’s destructive in the long run. A lot of people say Trump is racist, citing the stupid things he’s said. And some of them make me shudder and some of them are inappropriate. But in my opinion, the only color that really matters to him is green. The one on American dollars. I think there are a lot of people who support Trump and they’re not all white men, and for whom the idea of ​​making money is a priority. They’re saying, ‘I want to feed my family. I want my kids to live the American dream that I couldn’t have.’ And Trump understands that.

The third reason is that the things Kamala Harris actually believes are, to borrow a term from her running mate, “weird.” If she wins in November, based on everything she has said and promised over the past month and a half, America will look like a Salvador Dalí painting or a Man Ray film.

With his housing planher promise to promote the creation of small businesses or by making purchasing power her number one priority… Can’t Kamala Harris appeal to middle-class voters?

She’s trying. But she hasn’t presented a really solid plan for anything. She’s put forward some ideas, but ideas are ideas. They’re not plans. The same could be said of the Republican candidate, except that there have already been four years of Trump’s presidency for Americans to at least judge. Ideas are not enough. But I do give her one thing: she’s passionate. And I think people want their leaders to be passionate about something. I like the way she understands that she has to connect with every voter. During the debate, she kept saying, “You know, Trump doesn’t have anything for you. I have something for you.” She still hasn’t specified what she means by that, but I appreciate her acknowledging that we are a nation of individuals.

If you were his advisor, what would be the first piece of advice you would give him to beat Trump?

I would say to him: “Forget all about Trump. Don’t talk about him. There has already been a referendum on Trump. The people who are against him are already with you. You have to give everyone else a reason to come and vote for you.”

How do you analyze his decision to no longer want to debate with Kamala Harris by election day?

Trump is wrong. A new debate would be in his interest. It would give him an opportunity to prepare better this time. Especially since the risk that Kamala Harris will make a fatal mistake through overconfidence or confusion is still high.