Maybe we are asking presidential candidates the wrong questions

What Do You Want to See When You’re Running for the President? An Interview with Michele Harris in 2019, when she was running for the Democratic nomination

It might be interesting to journalists to know how Harris explains her changing views from 2019, when she ran for the Democratic nomination, to now, when she is the nominee. But it is not at all clear to me that it is interesting to viewers, who may be less concerned with how she deals with the question and more concerned with the actual substance of what she wants to do as president. A soft-focus question about a photograph, however iconic, seems less valuable than a question about Harris’s view of the presidency now that she’s spent almost four years in the passenger’s seat as vice president.

INSKEEP: With Dana Bash, she worked through some of the policy changes. Running for president in 2019, she said she would ban fracking. But in the interview, she insisted she had changed her mind by a little bit later in that same campaign in 2020 – that she’s been in favor of fracking for years and would not ban it now. Harris had been criticized by Republicans for avoiding interviews and now the stakes are high.

MARTIN: I want to point out that you have covered her, and you have interviewed her a number of times. What was your major takeaway?

KHALID: She has grown and I think you can see it in this interview. She is more prepared to answer questions in a more structured way, than when I first interview her, but this was a different format. It was a joint interview with her running mate, Tim Walz. You know, broadly, Michel, this was not an earth-shattering interview. Republicans and Democrats will take from it whatever they want that reinforces their own preexisting perceptions of her. To some, she is seen as pragmatic. To other people she’s long-winded. And I think they could take whatever they want either way in that interpretation from last night’s interview.

I think it is a good thing that we have improved the supply chain so we don’t rely on foreign governments to provide basic necessities for American families. There’s more to do, but that’s good work.

What Do Candidates Think about Running for Office? The Case of Kamala Harris-Talz (D-Nordst)

KHALID: Not much. She said that she would strengthen the middle class when she was asked what she would do on her first day as president. I would say that policy proposals are not relevant to how she’s campaigning. She said that she was a new way forward and turning the page on the decade of negative politics that dominated our culture.

If there’s a suggestion, I believe it to be warped, that the measure of a leader’s strength is based on who you beat down, rather than where I think most Americans are.

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If the goal of the CNN interview with Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota was to relitigate the campaign controversies of the last month — to get the candidates to talk about the major narratives of the election so far — then it was a rousing success. Harris easily dispatched questions about her identity and gave a strong defense of President Biden’s record. Walz, likewise, made short work of the charge that he had misled the public when he spoke about using one fertility treatment when it was actually another, similar treatment.

Speaking for myself, I am less interested in hearing candidates navigate controversies or speak to narratives than I am in hearing them talk, for lack of a better term, about their theory of the office. How does a candidate feel about being president? What would she prioritize in office and how would she handle an endless onslaught of crises and issues that may, or may not, demand her attention? How does she view her relationship with Congress, and what would happen if there was an opposition legislature that did not like her? What value do she place on communication and the bully pulpit? Why do she like the presidents she admires? Are there presidential accomplishments that stand out and how so? What are the mistakes a president makes? Why do you want this job in the first place?