Kamala's Debate Prep Looks Just Like Joe's

We've had a couple of articles on Kamala's debate prep. What strikes me is that they really don't seem to differ from what we learned about Joe's debate prep before June 27. For instance,

Vice President Kamala Harris is holed up for five days in a Pittsburgh hotel, doing highly choreographed debate practice sessions before Tuesday night’s clash. There’s a stage and replica TV lighting and an adviser in full Lee Strasberg method-acting mode, not just playing Donald Trump but inhabiting him, wearing a boxy suit and a long tie.

In addition,

On Saturday, Fox News reporter Bryan Llenas revealed the extreme lengths Harris’s team is going to ahead of the debate.

“We know that Vice President Kamala Harris is in her hotel in Pittsburgh. They’ve got the lights as if it’s in a studio. They’ve got the stage. They’ve even brought in somebody who’s dressed and acting like the former President,” Llenas told GOP strategist Pete Seat.

This debate prep strategy mirrors tbhe accounts we had of Joe's, surrounding his disastrous June 27 performance. According to Reuters,

"It is my belief that he was over-coached, over-practiced. And I believe [senior aide] Anita Dunn... put him in a venue that was conducive for Trump and not for him,” said John Morgan, a Florida-based attorney and major Biden fundraiser.

Morgan said Dunn and her husband, Bob Bauer, the president’s attorney who played Trump in pre-debate rehearsals, should "be fired forever and never let back anywhere near the campaign."

Biden's debate strategy was signed off on by campaign chair Jen O'Malley Dillon, who helped him win in 2020 and was appointed in January to boost an uneven reelection campaign. Dunn, a longtime Biden aide and former Barack Obama campaign strategist, backed that strategy.

. . . Advisers set up a rigorous debate prep calendar, with Biden sequestered at Camp David for six days.

An inner circle, some close to Biden for decades, were involved: Ron Klain, his first White House chief of staff, Dunn, former White House counsel and long-time adviser Mike Donilon, as well as about a dozen other policy and political experts.

The best anyone can conclude is that having a Trump impersonator and a stage set up to mimic the conditions of the debate didn't work out, and the Anita Dunn-Bob Bauer power couple were in fact purged soon after June 27. According to the Reuters link,

As Biden and his aides settled in at Camp David six days before the debate, aides figured he had a lot to accomplish, more than his opponent. Trump could just complain about the present administration - and Biden would need the facts and some zingers at his fingertips.

They expected Trump would be far more disciplined and prepared than he had been in 2020 and believed that they would need to counter a string of rapid-fire lies.

In lengthy prep sessions, they peppered Biden with details, then followed them up with mock debates.

Various accounts suggest Joe didn't take well to the intense cram sessions, and he used cold symptoms to cancel many of them. It looks as though Kamala has responded to this regimen about as well as Joe did:

"What's the best part of debate prep for you?"

Kamala: "Being at the spice store!"pic.twitter.com/AoM29xdAXX

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) September 7, 2024

So although Anita Dunn and Bob Bauer were made the scapegoats for Joe's poor debate prep and left the White House afterward, it's hard for me to avoid thinking Kamala'a handlers are following exactly the same strategy. Jen O'Malley Dillon, after all, is still Kamala's campaign chair, even though she was the one who greenlighted the original Biden prep sessions, which included sequestering the candidate, mock debates, a faux studio, and intense cram sessions.

It looks like none of rhese things can fix a bad candidate, but it's also worth pondering what John Morgan, the Biden fundraiser quoted in the Reuters story, remarked: "Anita Dunn. . . put [Biden] in a venue that was conducive for Trump and not for him". That's turned out to be exactly the same venue that Kamala will now have, which her handlers tried and failed to change. Maybe they should have kept Anita Dunn and replaced Jen O'Malley Dillon -- or maybe the problem goes higher. Maybe they needed to replace Nancy Pelosi.