I'm not sure people appreciate just how brilliant the Democratic game plan has been over the last month. I'm not saying that sarcastically. They have turned arguably the worst Vice President's in recent history into a viable candidate for president, one with a real chance to win. That's not something I personally thought was possible, because Kamala Harris, as we all know, has been a cringey, basket-case for the last 3 years.

How did this turnaround happen? It happened because the people who are actually running this campaign turned her greatest weakness into a strength. It really is smart politics, even if it's completely deceptive and empty.

Think back to the years before VP Harris became candidate Harris. What was her worst quality? You might think of her tendency to scream at her staff which led to massive turnover. Some jobs had three people in them in three years. No one wanted to work for her, at least not for very long.

That's a big negative but the ugly stuff happened behind the scenes and most Americans (the majority who don't read the news) don't know about it.

Her biggest public defect was her tendency to talk nonsense and then try to cover the awkwardness with her grin and her cackle. Harris does this constantly. Tasked with saying something profound, or at least mildly interesting, she would often sound like a kid doing a book report on a book she hadn't read. And then, to try to win people over, she'd break into a grin and often a laugh. It was a tell, a sign that she had nothing much to say about anything. The laugh was a cover for her ineptitude. For example:

So how do you turn this clown show into a credible candidate? You announce that her campaign is powered by joy. Suddenly that cackle isn't showing that she's way out of her depth, it's showing that she's a "joyful warrior." And incredibly, this plan seems to be working. I've lost track of how many times I've seen the phrase "joyful warrior" on X or in news stories. They have turned her very worst quality into a positive, at least for a time.

Now imagine for a moment that Harris actually wins this race. Cackling Kamala is the person we have to see on TV for the next four years dealing with various crises both foreign and domestic. How long before that out of place laughter stops feeling like a positive? A month? Maybe two? It's one thing to by a "joyful warrior" when your only job is putting on a show for the media. It's something else when your actual job is leading the country and, to some degree, the world.

And that's the big problem with this brilliant PR solution: It can't last. It's a matter of time before this show grows old. Fortunately for Democrats they were able to insert Harris into a campaign where she'd previously been a non-entity. So they only need this show to work for a few months and then, they'll deal with the serious consequences of putting an incompetent in the top job later. 

All they care about for now is winning and that means keeping Harris away from anything serious or important. The first time she tries talking about the war in Gaza or the economy and starts to cackle, it's over. The spell will be broken and people will start to wonder if she's really a joyful warrior or just a blithering idiot.

The game plan here has a lot of similarities to what the Biden campaign has been doing for years. Joe Biden had a different problem. He was far too old to run again, but Democrats managed to deny or ignore this and his team did their best to a) keep him on the teleprompter and b) keep him away from unscripted questions. We all saw why this was so important at the first debate. Stripped of his supports, Biden looked like a confused old man.

Harris has a different problem. She's not competent and that will show unless they a) keep her on the teleprompter and b) keep her away from unscripted questions. It's the same game plan, it's just covering for a different serious flaw in a different candidate. Today, the editors at the Free Press ask how long the campaign can keep this up.

The reasons for Harris’s evasion of the press are her own, but we think she has two chief motivations. First, she understands that without having to answer tough questions, she never has to worry about straying from her message. The second is that Harris doesn’t want to answer direct questions about her record—and her plans for the future—because both are lacking.

Take last Friday, for instance, when Harris held a rally in North Carolina where she unveiled her economic plan. The event was supposed to mark the beginning of her policy agenda for her first 100 days. Harris promised rally-goers that she would usher in an “opportunity economy” where “everyone can compete and have a real chance to succeed.” An economy where “everyone, regardless of who they are, where they start, has an opportunity to build wealth for themselves and their children.”

Good vibes. Until you hear how she plans to do it: by setting price controls—an idea that betrays a below-average understanding of how the economy works.

How long can the media honeymoon last? I really think her campaign is hoping it lasts until November. And given that about 90% of the professional media leans left or hard left, they may be right. Her campaign has all but said as much.

As her campaign surrogate, Kaivan Shroff, told ABC News this week: “The more details you share the more your policies get picked apart, but what [Kamala] is saying is. . . she trusts journalists to explain these policies and our values to folks. When that happens, it will be successful for Democrats.”

Democrats always count on their media advantage but I don't think they've ever counted on it as much as they have this year, first with Joe Biden and now with Kamala Harris. If the media at some point decides to do their jobs and press for interviews, the Harris campaign is in trouble. This is a house of cards waiting to collapse amid the sound of cackling laughter.

But so far the media seems content to go along with the "joyful warrior" nonsense. Sure, there has been some complaining about Harris not giving interviews but it hasn't really cost her anything. Until it does, this empty suit campaign will continue.

Update: This NY Times opinion piece was published today. It's titled "The Meaning — and Power — of Kamala Harris’s Smile." Talk about drinking the Kool-Aid.

I’m reluctant to write about Kamala Harris’s smile because I’m going to get all gushy and mushy about it, and the Harris lovefest is a jammed jamboree without need of another journalist. She’s enjoying more than a routine political honeymoon; she’s in the priciest suite on the poshest cruise ship sailing through a tropical paradise where coconuts tumble juicily from their trees into her aloe-moistened hands.

But I can’t stop noticing and basking in her happy face. Actually, happy doesn’t do it justice — it’s exuberant. Sometimes even ecstatic...

Harris seems to recognize that. Her vibe-centric campaign isn’t merely an evasion of specifics; it’s a sating of voters’ specific hunger. It acknowledges and addresses how many of them want “an opportunity to feel something more than contemplate something, ebullience over dread,” as my Times Opinion colleague Charles M. Blow wrote in a column published on Wednesday.

Democrats really have convinced themselves that what the world needs now is the smile of a dunce. If this strategy works, they will come to regret it. We all will.