Kamala’s ‘Wizard of Oz’ strategy — and its danger

Vice President Kamala Harris is a mysterious public figure indeed. Despite hitting the campaign trail, she’s managed to stay virtually entirely on script — and never off the cuff. She's distanced herself from her past positions, sponsorships, and even her current agenda, but not personally, of course. Announcements of her shifts have come through anonymous aides and unsourced campaign statements. No comment, no interviews; she wouldn’t even sit down for Time’s servile profile.

You might call it the “Wizard of Oz” campaign strategy. “Pay no attention to that woman behind the curtain! The great Her has spoken!” It’s not bad; brilliant in its simplicity. But with every passing day, the act grows a little more dangerous.

You can play the great and powerful Oz for a good long while, but eventually, someone pulls back the curtain.

Meanwhile, her scant and shallow policies have drawn polite applause from corporate media. It’s not cynical pandering or “flip-flopping” any more. When Harris does it, it’s “worth reflecting on [her] transformation,” as Playbook put it. But even Playbook is a little suspicious of the whole thing. After she copied her Republican opponent’s no-tax-on-tips idea, aping it so plainly that she announced it in the same city where he debuted the plan, our intrepid reporters admitted surprise that “she had endorsed any policy proposal at all.”

The very next day, it was excitement again. Harris’ complete lack of a foreign policy is exciting to those tired of a field dominated by Hillary Clinton's and Barack Obama’s people. There’s no actual sign that those same blob people won’t end up back in charge, but there’s something so invigorating about a blank canvas, isn’t there?

Democrats are even telling reporters (on background, of course) that there’s no reason to muck up the "enthusiasm and energy” with policy, and they’re right. Democrats have nothing to gain and everything to lose by putting Harris on the stand.

Remember the last time they tried to put Harris in the spotlight? Democrats and their media pals tried to make “Excuse me, I’m speaking” into the “Yas, queen!” of 2020, but it didn’t really take. If Harris were cool or smart — or good at her job or even remotely passable — she would have been a star of the administration. Instead, she was hidden away from the press, and there’s no intent to shift course now.

The strategy worked for Joe Biden in 2020. But he had COVID to hide behind — and an incumbent weakened by his own COVID policies and consumed by his personal gripes and feuds. The unintended consequence of all that hiding, however, was declining public trust. When his actual abilities were finally revealed during the first re-election debate against former President Donald Trump, it all came tumbling down.

The longer Harris waits before giving an interview, the closer the focus it will receive. Her virtually inevitable meaningless meanderings, nonsense slogans, and awkward cackles will be carefully scrutinized. In a normal campaign, these sorts of moments can blend into the noise and get lost in the news cycle. No such luck when simply speaking itself could generate a headline.

You can play the great and powerful Oz for a good long while, but eventually, someone pulls back the curtain.

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The fire rises: The New York Times: Immigrants are becoming US citizens at fastest clip in years

The Biden-Harris administration is naturalizing more citizens than the federal government has in a decade. That’s not a coincidence, of course, and it isn’t just about clearing up backlogs. There’s a political agenda here, and it culminates in November. Miriam Jordan reports:

Naturalization applications typically spike upward in the approach to an election.

“The surge in naturalization efficiency isn’t just about clearing backlogs; it’s potentially reshaping the electorate, merely months before a pivotal election," said Xiao Wang, chief executive of Boundless, a company that uses government data to analyze immigration trends and that offers services to immigrants who seek professional help in navigating the application process.

"Every citizenship application could be a vote that decides Senate seats or even the presidency," Mr. Wang said.

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