In her 2019 primary campaign, Kamala’s inability to stick to a program was one of the causes of her undoing. She kept reinventing herself and her campaign until no one knew what she stood for.

There’s value in flexibility and being able to change one’s mind, but there also needs to be a battle plan.

Kamala’s campaign kicked off with ‘joy’, then when voters seemed less than enthused, pivoted to economic issues, struggled to make the case there, and then went right back to Biden’s “protect democracy” line.

To a nation troubled by economic misery, Kamala decided to make her closing argument at the Ellipse, summoning up J6, after accusing Trump of being a fascist dictator. Set aside minor matters like truth and decency, and the argument is tired. No one within range of the mainstream media over the last 4 years is unfamiliar with it. And they either care or they don’t. Most people are looking for change.

As bad as Obama was, his closing argument was ‘hope and change’, not ‘my opponent is Hitler’.

Kamala’s Ellipse speech was a rambling joyless mess. It stitched together contradictory promises, promises of change with warnings about how awful Trump is, and hardly tried for inspiration.

Some of it seemed like it had been written by ChatGPT.

What is one to make of nonsense like, “we have to stop pointing fingers and start locking arms”?

Or promising to “turn the page on the drama and the conflict, the fear and division” while building her speech around invoking drama, conflict, fear and division.

Kamala’s pitch to voters once again was that supporting her meant turning the page, but on what? The public most wants to turn the page on the last 4 years.

Mostly, Kamala has little to say that voters, outside her own base, are interested in. Invoking Trump as a boogeyman doesn’t address any of the top concerns that voters have. It’s not a triumphant note, but a despondent one. In the final weeks, Kamala retreated from talking about what the country cared about and retreated to safe spaces like abortion and J6 that no one except her base cares about.

Safe spaces don’t win elections.