CNN presidential historian Tim Naftali argued Friday that there is a long history of American candidates winning the presidency by appealing to "vibes" rather than transparent policy proposals.
Since taking over the Democratic nomination, Vice President Kamala Harris has been criticized for not only abstaining from interviews, but for being opaque about what her platform would actually be if she became president. In some areas of policy, she has been accused of flip-flopping or even copying former President Trump.
CNN's Phil Mattingly pointed out that Harris’ allies also advise that the candidate stick to talking broadly rather than on the specifics of policy.
"One of the interesting things when you talk to Democrats about where the vice president stands on specific things, you hear from some saying, look, don’t get into the weeds on the policy issues, focus on character, focus on values, as the vice president repeatedly said last night," Mattingly said of Harris’ interview on Thursday. "Is that an effective strategy? Not actually detailing an agenda, but instead kind of talking more 30,000 foot?"
"It has been effective in American history," Naftali confirmed. "Franklin Roosevelt ran on the New Deal, of course, he was running at a time of economic collapse, and he was running against an incumbent. But he didn’t actually say what the New Deal was. Indeed, his ideas about what a New Deal should be in 1932 were — would be very different by the time it was 1934, ‘35."
He went on to note how both Republicans and Democrats have benefited from vibes-based campaigning.
"John F. Kennedy ran promising to make the country move again. Well, how vague is that? He ran a vibes campaign for the most part in 1960. Richard Nixon in 1968 promised to end the war in Vietnam, but didn’t say how we would do it. He said he had a secret plan. He was as vague as he could be, again, saying, ‘I’m different from the people in power. I’m different from LBJ.’"
He then mentioned a far more recent example, recalling how "Barack Obama promised change. He did promise some policy changes, of course, but he was basically saying ‘We’ve had enough with the Bush administration. We’ve had enough with its wars.’ So historically, a vibes campaign can be very effective, a campaign that is light on policy can be effective."
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The one twist with this current election, Naftali argued, is that Harris is running as a change candidate while already serving alongside the current president.
"The challenge, of course, for Vice President Harris is that she’s actually in the administration at the moment," he said. "She has to explain a little bit better how she’s going to approach the border issue and why it took, you know, three years to implement that executive order. What she has on her side is that she’s vice president. Vice presidents don’t make those decisions. It would be OK if she opened up a little daylight between her and Joe Biden."
