Apart from “60 Minutes,” most of the interviews on Kamala Harris’s media tour this week — a multiplatform circuit that ran from daytime TV to late-night, satellite to podcast — were not what you would call adversarial. Howard Stern endorsed her. Whoopi Goldberg introduced her as “the next president of the United States.” Stephen Colbert’s audience greeted her with a chant of “Ka! Ma! La!”
A friendly interview, however, is not automatically a safe one. Politicians can blunder worst when they feel at ease. Think of Barack Obama, who early in his presidency had to apologize after going on “The Tonight Show” and disparaging his bowling skills as “like the Special Olympics.”
Friendly also does not mean insipid. A sympathetic interview might not drill down on contradictions the way a straight-news journalist would, or include as many “Critics say that you …” or “But how would you pay for it?” questions.
But it can still be illuminating, about both who a candidate is and the persona she wants to present. Ms. Harris has been the first Democratic candidate, since Donald J. Trump rode down the escalator in 2015, to challenge him as politics’ main character. Being the protagonist of an election is an asset — not to mention a way to irritate an opponent who craves to be the center of every photo, the bride at every wedding.
It is not, however, a role that the vice president takes to naturally. (“It feels immodest,” she told Mr. Stern.) The Kamala Harris who was everywhere on screens and speakers this week was a cautious politician and an expansive talk-show guest. She could be vague on policy detail and vivid in telling individual stories. She was the kind of candidate who would have a beer with you — she literally did with Mr. Colbert — but was guarded when it came to spilling the tea.
The reality of elections today is that politicians, like entertainment celebrities, have more media options and leverage. With legacy outlets no longer owning the gateway to the public, politicians are freer to choose their own platforms and their own audiences. Mr. Trump has also limited his exposure this campaign mainly to interviews with conservative media and influencers, and “60 Minutes” reported that he backed out of an agreement to appear on the program.
Ms. Harris regards the spotlight differently from her opponent. Where Mr. Trump sees a live-TV appearance as a gyre of chaos in which he can bend reality to his will, she seems to see it as a set of traps to avoid by walking a narrow path.
This week, Ms. Harris aimed her paths toward select audiences. “Call Her Daddy,” a hugely popular podcast hosted by Alex Cooper, draws Gen Z and millennial women; the all-female panel of “The View,” the daytime-talk audience. On Howard Stern’s SiriusXM show, she engaged warmly with a radio personality who hosted Mr. Trump in his reality-star and celebrity playboy days. “60 Minutes” and Mr. Colbert’s “Late Show” reached segments of the old-school broadcast TV audience.
If you marathoned the entire run, you heard a lot of repeated talking points and anecdotes. But you also got a fuller picture of who Ms. Harris is as a speaker and public personality, and of her strengths and weaknesses as her own spokeswoman.
She could shift modes, both between and within interviews: passionate, introspective, reserved, jokey. (When Mr. Colbert asked what she was thinking during a moment in her debate with Mr. Trump, she answered, laughing, “It starts with a W, there’s a letter in between and the last letter is F.”)
When talking about abstractions or policies, she can be verbose and foggy, as with the word-avalanche answer on Israel policy she gave Bill Whitaker on “60 Minutes.” She’s far more engaged and compelling when coming at an issue through a specific story, either real-life or hypothetical.
Talking to Ms. Cooper about the effects of abortion bans, for instance, Ms. Harris drew a vignette of a mother forced to leave her state to receive care. “She’s going to have to go to the airport, stand in a T.S.A. line, sit on a plane next to a perfect stranger to go to a city where she’s never been,” she said. “She’s going to probably have to get right back on that plane because she’s got those kids. Her best friend’s probably not with her because that’s who’s taking care of those kids.”
There was some news on the media tour. On “The View,” Ms. Harris announced a plan to have Medicare cover home health care (a responsibility that often falls on “sandwich generation” women, many of them likely to be in the show’s audience). There was also the sort of news a candidate would rather not make.
Ms. Harris was criticized after declining, both on “The View” and “The Late Show,” to say that she would do anything as president differently from Mr. Biden, which Mr. Trump seized on. (Of course, breaking with the president would have likely launched its own news cycle.)
But there were also land mines avoided. Both Mr. Stern and Joy Behar of “The View” invited her to theorize on why voters still support Mr. Trump. She passed, maybe conscious of the potential for a Hillary Clinton “basket of deplorables” moment.
Beyond the weightier discussion, Ms. Harris — laughing, sharing, cracking open a Miller High Life — performed the highest duty of a talk-show guest, which is to seem glad to be there. Part of a modern campaign, and a modern presidency, is sending the message that you don’t just love people but like them, that you are engaged with life.
Mr. Obama, as president, would share his N.C.A.A. brackets, sometimes to criticism. Ms. Harris bantered with Mr. Stern about her favorite era of Prince music. (She likes “1999”; he’s into the “Batman” soundtrack.)
Serious-minded people are not supposed to care about “likability” in a president, but it is an asset in governing. It can carry you through rough patches and make voters want you to succeed. In the latest New York Times/ Siena College poll, respondents saw Ms. Harris as the more “fun” candidate, which may seem frivolous but is not irrelevant. Mr. Trump’s appeal to his supporters has always partly been that of an entertainer.
With less than a month remaining to Election Day, will Ms. Harris keep up this media strategy? There can be an advantage to making one’s self the lead character of an election. It can also backfire, and there can be an advantage to ceding the spotlight if you believe it will treat your opponent unflatteringly.
This week, Ms. Harris embraced the first strategy but left room for the second. On “60 Minutes,” when Mr. Whitaker asked her to comment on Mr. Trump’s pulling out of his interview on the program, she had a recommendation for the audience: “Watch his rallies.”
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