Will a lack of detailed policy hurt Harris?

KCRW's Left, Right & Center

KCRW

352865, News

4.2 • 4.8K Ratings

🗓️ 16 August 2024

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Kamala Harris is expected to reveal her campaign’s policy over the next week in the run-up to the Democratic National Convention. Questions from the media and GOP about a lack of detailed policy have been growing. Donald Trump is taking the opportunity to accuse Harris of flip-flopping on policy positions from her 2020 primary campaign, especially related to fracking and immigration. Is it important to hold candidates accountable for earlier positions, or should voters accept that people running for office have evolving views and mold their messages for the moment?

Also, the contrasting personalities of Harris and Trump have started defining the “vibes” of this election. Do voters care more about character than policy, and does this apply to vice presidential nominees too? How do Americans feel about the importance of financial success when it comes to J.D Vance vs. Tim Walz?

The names of schools and other buildings have come up more frequently over the years. As part of our 50 states series, KCRW discusses how one community in Massachusetts is grappling with a history of racism and is attempting to create more inclusion for students.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey everybody. Thanks for being here for another left right and center. I am
0:04.6	David Green and I'm excited about this week's show. We're going to dig into some big
0:09.1	ideas about our politics and about this election, such as flip-flopping, what is it and does it really matter to
0:16.8	voters to anyone?
0:17.8	Also, what's an election about if it's not about
0:25.0	about specific policy ideas, which we're not getting much of from either the candidates. And later we'll talk about what's behind some of these conversations
0:28.0	around the country about naming or renaming schools
0:31.6	to honor people and their legacy.
0:33.6	So let's start with Flipflops because the Smithsonian's National Museum of American
0:38.4	history actually has that item in its collection, a pair of flip-flops, which were handed out by former President George
0:46.6	W Bush's campaign during his re-election run to try and accuse his opponent John Kerry
0:51.7	of switching positions.
0:53.4	It's that iconic in our politics.
0:55.0	Well, now Republicans are returning to the theme
0:57.9	to attack Vice President Kamala Harris.
1:00.3	This is Donald Trump talking about the Vice President's past statements about wanting to ban fracking in Pennsylvania.
1:07.0	This is the controversial method of extracting natural gas that is important to Pennsylvania's economy.
1:12.0	Kamala has vowed that if elected, she will absolutely ban fracking.
1:17.0	She said, I'll ban fracking, just recently, I'll ban fracking. There will be no fracking. That means that you can't win the state of Pennsylvania
1:26.2	because Pennsylvania is all about fracking. That's their biggest industry.
1:30.4	So the Harris campaign says now no that their candidate no longer supports the banning of fracking.
1:37.0	There's also Kamla Harris's earlier support for mandatory programs to buy back assault weapons from gun owners. This was her in 2019.
	...

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