In a word, it is impossible for her to give any meaningful answer.
Yet the journalists keep asking it. (Even an interviewer from MSNBC, on Friday, acted like this question was a big deal.)
It’s not that it’s illegit for people to want to know. If people are not happy with what they imagine is the record of the Biden presidency, then they might understandably want to know how she would lead the nation differently from how Biden has.
But it’s a stupid question because — 1) when it comes to the past -- she can’t criticize the President she serves, or the administration she’s been part of. And because — 2) when it comes to the future — she cannot really know how her response to new situations will differ from what Biden’s would have been.
1) She is still the VP. That means it remains her job to support her President’s policies. She can no more find fault with Biden’s policies than the Secretary of State or any other major figure in the administration. (Can you imagine Secretary Blinken saying, “If I were calling the shots, I’d deal with Netanyahu differently?”
Additionally, VP Harris is beholden to Biden (for bequeathing the nomination to her).
Also, she cannot afford to alienate the “thank you, Joe” part of the Democratic coalition.
And so there’s no way it makes sense for her to issue any criticisms of President Biden, and/or the administration of which she’s been part. (Maybe, years from now, after her two terms as President, if she chooses to write her memoirs, she’ll tell us that she strenuously disagreed with some choice President Biden made. But no journalist’s question is going to get her to say any such thing now.)
So the MSNBC interviewer got her to say some anodyne policy positions that could well have been on Biden’s plans for a second term, but had not been priorities the past four years: Kamala mentioned the Home Care idea for inclusion in Medicare, and subsidies to help first-time home buyers to help address the problem of affordable housing. Not trivial matters, but hardly differentiating herself from President Biden in any illuminating way.
2) The other important point here is that we can assume that she will be different, because she is a different person, and different people respond to the same situation in different ways.
The big decisions often concern unanticipated developments — wars, pandemics, or other crises. It’s doubtful that many American presidents would have been able to deal as masterfully with the threatened Russian invasion of Ukraine than Biden did. It’s doubtful that many other American presidents would have dealt with Israel the way Biden has over the past year.
But there’s no way of knowing, in advance, just what kinds of big decisions a President Harris would be called upon to make. (Even she probably could not well imagine how her decisions would differ from those Joe Biden would have made.)
Different people — even if they have kindred values, and the same goals — will doubtless chart different courses as they navigate through the complex and unpredictable waters of national and world events.
Rather than asking that stupid question — “How are your policies different from your boss’s? -- if journalists want to illuminate what kind of President Kamala Harris might make, they will have to delve into territory that isn’t easy to judge. How does she think? Where in her past — including where in her present campaign -- has she shown good judgment, and where poor judgment? What is her decision-making process?
Hardly easy questions to answer, but at least the answers would tell us something meaningful.