The Republicans Need a New Set of Talking Points

Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is right. He called two of the most popular talking points Republicans are using right now "dumb" and "stupid." This is what he said to NBC News:

"Two attacks I've heard Republicans give that are totally stupid and dumb to do is the DEI attack, OK? The other attack that I would not do is saying that the president has to resign. That would be an advantage for Kamala. Air Force One is very powerful when it lands somewhere. And you know what? Something will happen between now and the election. A hurricane or something else. And she'll be able to present herself as a leader. Or maybe there's some foreign policy. That is a mistake for any leader to go out and say that on the Republican side. This DEI, that seems like a petty -- look, I disagree with DEI, but she is the vice president of the United States. She is the former U.S. senator. These congressmen that are saying it, they're wrong in their own instincts."

Mispronouncing her name, which Donald Trump has taken to doing, is equally stupid and dumb, and certainly not a reason to vote against her. So is name calling (a "lunatic"), saying she shouldn't be "allowed to run" and accusing her of "committing crimes."

What is striking is that the Trump team, which has had three weeks to prepare for this moment, has come out so flat-footed in dealing with it. The attacks so far have only energized the Democratic base and underscored Trump's own weaknesses.

And there are more: attacking the Democrats for being "undemocratic" in replacing the nominee who won the primaries is a dog that won't hunt, particularly when coming from someone who tried everything -- up to and including violating the Constitution and inciting violence -- to undermine the results of the last presidential election. To be explicit, primary voters from each state did not select the nominee; they elected delegates from each state who would do that. Those delegates, under Democratic Party rules in force since the 1980s, have been free to vote their consciences. They are. An overwhelming majority have made clear that they intend to vote for Harris, and there is nothing undemocratic about that. No phony slates of electors in sight, which is more than what Trump tried to put in place of the Electoral College in 2020. Indeed, it is Republicans who are lawyering up even now in what is certain to be a doomed effort to keep Harris, once she is nominated, off state ballots. So much for democracy.

But the fact that Republicans have yet to get their acts together about how to run against Harris doesn't mean that they won't. Most Americans in fact know very little about the next Democratic nominee. Trump they know. He didn't get a convention bounce from being nice, and he's made clear that he isn't about to start, but he is a known quantity, and the tens of millions of voters who say they plan to vote for him probably will. That still means a close election.

The question -- for the next three months and change -- is who will get to define Harris first, and who will get together the organization on the ground in swing states that will turn out the lower-propensity voters who will decide this election. No one should expect the Republicans to continue the blunderbuss efforts they have made so far to try to name call their way to success. Even now, they must be knee-deep in negative research about Harris, and they will use anything and everything they can to try to define her before she can define herself. And for all the criticism Trump has levelled at absentee ballots and early voting and the other tools of imaginary election fraud that he has conjured up, Democrats should expect the Trump organization to be embracing them in an effort to turn out their voters. Convincing President Joe Biden to step aside was the first step to defeating Trump, but the really hard part starts now, and as James Carville, who has been arguing all along that Biden needs to step aside, said on "Morning Joe," "We got to be a little careful" about all the enthusiasm now because "it's tough sledding ahead."

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To find out more about Susan Estrich and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.