What Harris Must Do to Win Over Skeptics (Like Me)

What does Kamala Harris think the United States should do about the Houthis, whose assaults on commercial shipping threaten global trade, and whose attacks on Israel risk a much wider Mideast war? If an interviewer were to ask the vice president about them, would she be able to give a coherent and compelling answer?

It’s not an unfair or unprecedented question. As a presidential candidate, George W. Bush was quizzed on the names of the leaders of Taiwan, India, Pakistan and Chechnya. He got one right (Taiwan’s Lee Teng-hui) but drew blanks on the rest. It fueled criticism, as The Times’s Frank Bruni reported in 1999, that “he is not knowledgeable enough about foreign policy to lead the nation.”

A few more questions for Harris: If, as president, she had intelligence that Iran was on the cusp of assembling a nuclear weapon, would she use force to stop it? Are there limits to American support for Ukraine, and what are they? Would she push for the creation of a Palestinian state if Hamas remained a potent political force within it? Are there any regulations she’d like to get rid of in her initiative to build three million new homes in the next four years? What role, if any, does she see for nuclear power in her energy and climate plans? If there were another pandemic similar to Covid-19, what might her administration do differently?

It may be that Harris has thoughtful answers to these sorts of questions. If so, she isn’t letting on. She did well in the debate with Donald Trump, showing poise and intelligence against a buffoonish opponent. But her answers in two sit-down interviews, first with CNN’s Dana Bash and then with Brian Taff of 6ABC in Philadelphia, were lighter than air. Asked what she’d do to bring down prices, she talked at length about growing up middle-class among people who were proud of their lawns before pivoting to vague plans to support small business and create more housing.

Lovely. Now how about interest-rate policy, federal spending and the resilience of our supply chains?

All this helps explain my unease with the thought of voting for Harris — an unease I never felt, despite policy differences, when Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden were on the ballot against Trump. If Harris can answer the sorts of questions I posed above, she should be quick to do so, if only to dispel a widespread perception of unseriousness. If she can’t, then what was she doing over nearly eight years as a senator and vice president?