Now everyone wants to be a centrist.
It's currently all the rage.
Now, if a normal person, say your friend, changed their position on a major issue, they would probably hold you accountable. But politicians play by different rules.
After a primary season in which both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris focused their efforts on riling up their bases, they have gradually moved toward the center, and in some cases, are sprinting.
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In Las Vegas, Harris blatantly plagiarized Trump's proposal to ban tip taxes on service workers.
All eyes are on the vice president, not just because she's new to the race, but because she's studiously avoided the press until her meeting with CNN's Dana Bash, where she periodically returns to the plane for private sessions in which she asks questions of every reporter who's there, but which obviously doesn't offer much value to the rest of us.
The bigger problem for Harris is that she has abandoned, without explanation, many of the far-left positions she took when she ran for president in 2020.
After completely reversing her far-left stance in 2019, Vice President Kamala Harris caught people's attention when she told CNN's Dana Bash that her “values haven't changed.” (Screenshot/CNN)
These include abolishing private health insurance (per Bernie Sanders' “Medicare for All”), opposing past fracking laws, and supporting decriminalizing illegal border crossings.
She reiterated: “My values haven't changed.”
Regarding fracking, Harris told CNN, “In the 2020 debates, I made it very clear that as vice president, I would not ban fracking.” This is not true. She said Joe Biden will not ban fracking.
The vice president offered some clarification, saying his administration has created more than 300,000 clean energy jobs, “which shows we can do it without banning fracking.”
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Bash cited another episode from the past: “There was a debate. When asked if the border should be decriminalized, you raised your hand. Do you still believe that?”
“I believe there should be consequences. We have laws that deal with people who cross the border illegally, and they must be followed and enforced,” Harris said, without saying why she changed her stance.
What Kamala is doing is what most general election candidates are doing: leaning to the center. Whatever she thought suited the national mood in 2019, including her previous career as a prosecutor, is clearly not tenable today.
But on the Republican side, Trump is doing the same thing, just with less attention because he's preoccupied with other news, from the Arlington riots to his personal attacks on Harris.
(Kate Medley for The Washington Post via Getty Images)
Nowhere is this more evident than on abortion, a hot button issue for Republicans, which in some ways is Trump's fault, since it was his three-justice bench that was able to overturn Roe after half a century of precedent.
But now he says Florida's six-week birth control ban is too short and he thinks it should be extended by a few more weeks. He backed off a bit on whether he would support a competing initiative in the state, but he didn't back down on the six-week period when many women are unaware they're pregnant.
When I interviewed the former president at Mar-a-Lago, he indicated he would support an abortion ban at 15 or 16 weeks, but that would be decided at the state level based on Supreme Court rulings.
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“He also declared, 'My administration will be great for women and their reproductive rights,'” which sparked backlash from some pro-life groups, who now see Trump as inherently pro-abortion.
Despite Trump's boasts about repealing Roe, he has generally been leaning more toward the center, trying to make his positions more palatable to a broader range of voters, especially women.
(During our Mar-a-Lago interview, I asked Trump why he had changed his mind about TikTok, given that as president he would ban Chinese-owned apps. He replied that it would help Facebook, which he was more concerned about, and of course TikTok has a passionate support base of young users.)
Trump said over the weekend that he supports another Florida bill that would legalize recreational use of marijuana. He said the state should not “ruin people's lives and waste taxpayer money” by prosecuting people for possessing small amounts for personal use, another move to a more moderate position that has drawn condemnation from some conservatives.
Kamala accused the president of reversing course: As president, she said, the Justice Department cracked down on marijuana smokers.
One thing that's happening now is that both candidates are ignoring the timing of their past positions for political gain. In a Trump ad, Harris says, “Everyday items are too expensive — groceries, rent, gas, back-to-school clothes,” then edits it out to say, “Bidenomics is working.”
Harris spoke about rising prices due to the pandemic in a speech last month, and “Bidenomics” was a term she used in a speech last year in response to monthly employment reports.
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Kamala has said Trump is pushing Project 2025, but she has repeatedly dissed the Heritage Project from the start (which includes many of Trump's former White House aides).
Moving to the center is an art form, and one both candidates are currently attempting.
