The GOP has no qualms about using professional operatives (who they lovingly call "ratf***ers") to spread false information with the aim of damaging opponents' reputations and swaying voters.
During the 2000 South Carolina Republican primary, they placed robocalls to voters, asking, "Would you be more or less likely to vote for John McCain if you knew he had fathered an illegitimate black child?" (This was a twisted reference to McCain's adopted Bangladeshi daughter.) In 2004, they published a book titled Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry, which was funded by Republican donors, including some with ties to the Bush family. (The claims were disputed by media fact-checkers and by other veterans who served with Kerry.) In the 2008 South Carolina Democratic primary, voters received robocalls falsely claiming that Barack Obama was a Muslim and that he had attended a "Madrassa" (Islamic school) as a child. Their most infamous, and effective, tactic was the "Willie Horton" ad, which highlighted Dukakis's opposition to the death penalty and his support for the furlough program that allowed a murderer to commit further crimes, including rape.
Now the ratf***ing team has been given the go-ahead to use every tool at their disposal to attack Kamala Harris, the presumptive Presidential nominee for the Democrats.
"We see her as a candidate now, and we're holding the bucket of paint to define her at a time of our choosing," Chris LaCivita, the Trump campaign's co-manager, told The Bulwark. "She owns the Biden record. We've got everything ready for what she did as [District Attorney in San Francisco]. And she was part of the coverup with Biden's fitness to serve."
As reported in The Bulwark, the Trump campaign and GOP are planning several lines of attack against Harris:
- Tying her to Biden's record: They plan to argue that "She owns the Biden record" and was part of a "coverup with Biden's fitness to serve."
- Focusing on her record as a prosecutor:
- Her 2004 refusal to seek the death penalty for a man who murdered a San Francisco police officer
- A 2007 decision by her DA office to give probation to a man who later committed a brutal assault
- Her support for a Minnesota bail fund during the 2020 George Floyd protests
- Attacking her on immigration policy and her tie-breaking votes on spending bills like the Inflation Reduction Act.
- Potentially using racial dog-whistles or more overt racial attacks, though the campaign claims they want to focus on policy outcomes rather than race.
- Portraying her as a "California liberal" and testing how seriously voters take her.
- Accelerating TV ad spending to define Harris negatively before she can define herself to voters.
In addition, says The Bulwark, Trump himself is likely to go off-script and make more explicitly racial attacks beyond what the campaign has planned. But we knew that already, didn't we?
Previously:
• Kamala Harris beats Trump in first major poll since Biden dropped out