It wouldn’t be a hard sell that Kamala Harris “exceeded expectations” or “over performed” in last night’s debate, but the surest sign that she did neither is the immediate sticky, slavish post-debate media coverage. I’m convinced all of it was pre-written and they were going to call Kamala a warrior queen even if she had literally soiled herself on stage.
New York Times “The Daily” podcast host Michael Barbaro said Kamala “dominated and enraged Donald Trump.” Mike Allen at Axios said Kamala “delivered for Democrats.” The Washington Post heralded her “sharp, fiery” performance.
Politico embarrassingly dubbed the night an “alpha female debate,” and its “Playbook” newsletter laid it on so thick, you’d swear they let Kamala write it herself. “HARRIS WINS,” it said. “If there’s any one word to describe the secret to Trump’s success in business and politics, it’s dominance.” In case you missed it the first time, Politico wrote again, “there was a dominant presence on stage in Philadelphia, and it sure wasn’t Trump.”
A normal person who actually watched the debate, regardless of party affiliation, might have come away thinking either candidate eked out a win or possibly neither did. Without accusing him of being normal, Elon Musk, who has endorsed Trump, said Kamala “exceeded most peoples’ expectations.”
But what it wasn’t was a decisive victory for Kamala. Even with non-stop, highly generous help from the host network’s two Democrat moderators, literally turning the affair into a three-against-one brawl, the vice president struggled. How could she not? Her campaign
