Embrace Those Good Vibrations

The case for Kamala to keep it simple.

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Aug 15, 2024

As political obsessives, we confess it: We’re already getting a little sick of the “weird” thing. Weeks of seeing the same point every day about these guys! Surely there’s some other way we can—

What’s that? There’s new audio out of JD Vance yukking it up with a podcast host who says that “the whole purpose of the postmenopausal female” is to help raise their grandkids?

Okay, a few more days of “weird” won’t hurt. Happy Thursday.

Supporters of Kamala Harris cheer as she speaks during a campaign rally at the University of Nevada on August 10, 2024. (Photo by RONDA CHURCHILL / AFP via Getty Images.)

Let Brian Wilson Be Your Guide

—Bill Kristol

This morning I write to defend vibes. They’re getting a bum rap.

Kamala Harris’s and Tim Walz’s good vibes only go so far, the pundits say. You can’t just keep running on vibes, the commentators warn. Give us a real policy agenda, the columnists implore.

Nah.

First of all, on the policy agenda front, be careful what you wish for. Policies unveiled at this point in a presidential campaign are going to be poll-tested and half-baked. The good news is they probably shouldn’t be taken too seriously.

Harris has to find some separation from Joe Biden, she has to show that she cares about high prices, and she has to make it clear she wants to help the middle class. She’ll do all this in some sensible ways, some symbolic ways, and some silly ways. Most of it won’t have much relation to what she would actually do as president—or even to what she could do as president.

But—if I may say something heterodox and perhaps shocking—it’s important that the policy proposals don’t get in the way of the good vibes.

The term “vibes” entered popular use thanks to the Beach Boys’ 1966 hit, “Good Vibrations.” Before that, a “vibe” was simply shorthand for a vibraphone, a percussion instrument with metal bars. But Brian Wilson’s hippy mother would tell him about how some people give off good “vibrations,” which led to the song, written by him with lyrics by his cousin and fellow Beach Boy, Mike Love. Pretty quickly “vibrations” led to “vibes”.

The song’s lyrics are simple and straightforward. Here’s the refrain:

I’m pickin’ up good vibrations
She’s giving me excitations (oom bop bop)
I’m pickin’ up good vibrations (good vibrations, oom bop bop)
She’s giving me excitations (excitations, oom bop bop)
Good, good, good, good vibrations (oom bop bop)
She’s giving me excitations (excitations, oom bop bop)
Good, good, good, good vibrations (oom bop bop)
She’s giving me excitations (excitations)

But simple and straightforward can be effective—in popular music, and in presidential politics.

What do we know about modern presidential politics?

That good vibrations—popularity, likability, a sense of excitement and, yes, joy—matter.

Think Barack Obama in 2008: “Hope and change” and “we are the ones we are waiting for.” We McCain supporters used to make fun of this stuff. But Obama won.

Think Ronald Reagan in 1984. “Morning in America.” An ad slogan. Reagan won.

Think Bill Clinton and Al Gore in 1992: “Change vs. more of the same.” In reality, the country could have done a lot worse than a continuation of the policies of the George H.W. Bush administration. But Clinton and Gore won.

I recently asked the mastermind of the 1992 Clinton campaign, James Carville, what the Harris campaign’s key themes against Donald Trump should be. “I would have three attacks,” he said. “One: Past. Two: Yesterday. Three: Stale. Three things . . . but one thing.”

And that one thing isn’t deep policy. It’s a vibe. All this should be supported by a policy agenda that reinforces the campaign’s theme. But the vibe is key.

I don’t want to go too far in this direction. And perhaps I’m overstating my pro-vibes argument. Policies matter. Values matter. But personal characteristics, images of the candidates, the overall spirit of the campaign, those also matter.

You know who understands this? Donald J. Trump.

What’s always been his obsession, and in a way, his talent? Branding. The overall image, the big impression, the general feeling—the vibe. Trump’s political talent—and it’s always the talent of the demagogue—is branding himself with favorable vibes, such as strength, showmanship, and making America great again, and branding his opponents with negative ones, such as being weak, dangerous, unpatriotic, and the like.

Which is why Trump is so rattled by Harris. He’s watching her and realizing that she’s winning the vibe wars. Her campaign offers morning in America. Her campaign is change vs. more of the same. She’s the under-75-year-old we’ve been waiting for.

Trump knows the power of all this. And he knows he’s losing because of it.

I’m no expert on the world of vibes. But I’ll say this to my friends working hard in Chicago to plan next week’s Democratic convention: Good speakers? Check. Compelling rhetoric? Check. Key arguments that resonate with important constituencies? Check. Telling contrasts with Trump and Vance? Check.

But they need always to step back and ask: What about the vibe?

I think the convention planners know this. And I look forward to late Thursday night, after the presidential nominee’s speech, when the balloons have dropped and the Harris and Walz families are all on stage. The music begins to blare through the United Center.

It’s Carl Wilson’s voice.

I love the colorful clothes she wears . . .

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Quick Hits

ACTUAL BIG DEAL POLICY NEWS: Per the AP, the prices for 10 of Medicare’s most popular and costliest drugs will be cut after deals struck between the government and the drug companies. “White House officials said Wednesday night they expect U.S. taxpayers to save $6 billion on the new prices, while older Americans could save roughly $1.5 billion on their medications.” Prescription drug costs consistently rate as one of the most salient election issues. Just sayin’.

THE YEAR OF MAGICAL PRICE CONTROLS: Who’s ready to grit their teeth through Harris’s economic-agenda rollout? In a speech in North Carolina tomorrow, Harris plans to propose the “first-ever federal ban on price-gouging on food and groceries,” her campaign said, threatening “stiff penalties in the food industry” against companies that raise prices beyond limits the federal government deems acceptable.

Not to be outdone, Trump was busy yesterday with some fanciful economics of his own. In a North-Carolina speech pegged as an economic policy rollout (but which ended up more or less a traditional campaign rally), he declared that under his leadership “the United States will commit to the ambitious goal of slashing energy and electricity prices by half at least . . . within 12 months, at a maximum 18 months.” How will that happen, you might wonder? Who knows!

One of these years, some group of folks in or near the government may rediscover the notion that hamfisted federal attempts to twist markets into a more favorable shape can end up doing more harm than good. We hope it’s soon!

NO SHAPIRO NECESSARY?: The latest Quinnipiac poll out of Pennsylvania gives Harris a three-point edge over Trump, 48-45, with 4 percent planning to back Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Meanwhile, Democratic Sen. Bob Casey holds a more commanding eight-point lead over Republican challenger David McCormick, 52-44.

When Harris picked Tim Walz as her running mate, some observers—including your correspondents—fretted that, in not selecting Pennsylvania’s popular governor, Josh Shapiro, as a running mate, she was passing up on an opportunity to lock the state down for good. At least so far, though, the Walz pick seems to be doing no harm in the Keystone State.

THIS GUY: The aforementioned Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appears to have approached the Harris campaign with an offer to make him a cabinet member. It didn’t go well. Or, frankly, anywhere. In fact, it didn’t really go at all. Harris’s campaign, according to the Washington Post, rebuffed the outreach. But like a man who stumbles upon a young bear dead in the road, Kennedy is plowing forward. This morning, he said, “VP Harris’s Democratic Party would be unrecognizable to my father and uncle.”

THIS GUY AGAIN: After years of stonewalling, the White House on Wednesday released records showing that Hunter Biden asked the U.S. ambassador to Italy to lobby the Italian government on behalf of Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company on whose board he served. This request—which took place in 2016, while Joe Biden was still vice president—unsettled officials to whom it was directed: “I want to be careful about promising too much,” a Commerce Department official wrote in an internal communication. “This is a Ukrainian company, and purely to protect ourselves, U.S.G. should not be actively advocating with the government of Italy” without Burisma going through an official program.