Dick Morris began his July 29 Newsmax column by whining that Democrats successfully defined Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential campaign:
The lesson of the 2012 Obama-Romney campaign is to use negatives early in the process to define your opponent soon after he or she is introduced to the voters.
In March of 2012, Romney had begun to define himself as a job creator/businessman until he ran into the negative campaign the Democrats ran defining him as a “vulture capitalist” who stripped companies of their profitable sectors and left only useless and money-losing operations in their wake.
The unrelenting criticism in negative ads completely changed Romney’s image.
Romney never answered; his campaign slowly died.
Even though Romney’s people — led by skilled media producer Stuart Stevens had very good rebuttal material already filmed showing how Romney had saved thousands of job by turning distressed companies around, the GOP failed to reply.
So, of course, Morris demanded that the Trump campaign go immediately negative against Kamala Harris:
By June 2012, the election was over and Romney could never repair the damage he sustained. Trump’s campaign must not make the same mistake.
They must wallpaper the swing states with 30-second negative ads exposing support by Kamala Harris for:
- Defunding the police
- Treating shoplifting under $950 as only a misdemeanor
- Refusing to treat illegal immigrants as criminals while providing them with taxpayer-funded free healthcare
She also must explain her opposition to fracking even though it produces 79% of American natural gas and 65% of our oil and her opposition to off-shore drilling.
She must elaborate on where our energy is going to come from cut off from these sources.
[…]We need seriously to understand that Harris wants to replace private health insurance with government paid healthcare, burdening Medicare with massive obligations it can only meet by rationing that care and denying us access to the doctor of our choice.
As San Francisco is ransacked by brazen shoplifters who ostentatiously parade their loot on television, Harris will have to explain why she changed state law so that offenders would only be prosecuted if they stole more than $950 of merchandise.
[…]Harris is dangerous and the Trump campaign needs to get busy identifying her as what she is. The ultimate San Francisco radical.
Having worked with the Trump campaign to identify that narrative, he started peddling it in a column the very next day:
Candidate Kamala Harris is busy promoting Biden’s plan to weaken the United States Supreme Court.
She regularly attacks JD Vance’s views on childless women.
She stridently articulates her support for abortion and regularly emphasizes her commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inlusion (DEI).
But where is Vice President Harris on the economy?
We don’t hear any plans from her to revive the U.S. economy despite reports that our national debt has just reached $35 trillion.
The economy is almost entirely absent from Kamala’s playbook.
[…][Kamla Harris can’t be allowed to smuggle in the most radical tax plans while she spends her time debating social issues.
Morris followed that with another attack-laden column on Aug. 6:
You only get one chance to make a first impression and Vice President Kamala Harris is squandering hers’.
She’s coasting off Trump’s questioning of Harris’ bona fides as a Black candidate — and the ensuing media backlash — she has failed to use the opportunity of her introduction to the voters to push a message.
Identity politics are not a message.
[…]Broadly speaking the majority of voters agree with Trump on the issues and applaud his accomplishments even as a sizable minority don’t like his personality.
But that’s a tradeoff Trump can make every day and still win the election.
By hammering on mistakes Trump makes or ill-considered remarks that escape his lips, Harris has not identified a path to victory, just a path to irrelevance.
Morris served up more attacks in an Aug. 28 column:
Democrats successfully let Joe Biden twist slowly in the wind.
They speculated publicly as to whether, or not he would be their candidate.
Additionally, Democrats hyped-up early voting.
And, the Democrats are trying to railroad Kamala’s candidacy, giving us as little time as possible to comprehensively vet her.
It wasn’t until the last possible moment that the Democratic Party forced Joe Biden to pull out of the 2024 race, while beating those early voting drums.
[…]The period before election day is filled with debates not just of the party leaders but of their entire shadow cabinet. But, in the U.S. we are being asked to decide only weeks or days before we know who is running.
And don’t think for a moment that the short window for Harris is inadvertent.
It’s key to the Democratic strategy to keep all of us clueless . . .
As long as possible.
Meanwhile, Morris was making use of his frequent appearance on Newsmax’s TV channel to push the same anti-Harris narrative:
- Dick Morris to Newsmax: Harris a ‘San Francisco Radical’
- Dick Morris to Newsmax: Harris Honeymoon Not ‘Decisive Bump’
- Dick Morris to Newsmax: Trump Will ‘Massacre’ Harris in First Debate
- Dick Morris to Newsmax: Harris Campaign ‘Now on Its Downward Trajectory’
- Dick Morris to Newsmax: Harris ‘Was Trying to Get Out of the Debate’
- Dick Morris to Newsmax: Trump Speaks in Contrast to Harris’ ‘Banal Generalities’
Morris continued to bash Harris in his Sept. 30 column:
The truth about this woman who flunked the California Bar (she passed it on the second try) is dawning on people: She’s not that bright and there is no there, there. She lacks the intellectual ability to pivot and adjust once here well rehearsed script has to change.
Once the blue wall completely crumbles, Trump’s vote totals will likely soar.
This may not be a close race after all.
Look for the former president to carry all the swing states — and to win or close the gap in Virginia and Minnesota (despite Gov. Tim Walz, D-Minn.), and a host of unlikely states.
The laggard Republican Senate candidates, now running well behind their former president will move into contention and some will doubtless win.
[…]The chances for a really big Republican landslide are increasing.
There’s nothing the Harris campaign can do with their limited-ability candidate.
A smile only goes so far.
Undisclosed was the fact that Morris is an adviser to Trump, so it’s not a surprise that he would fluff his candidate and denigrate the other.