Before this week’s presidential debate, Vice President Kamala Harris holed up. Hunkered down. Studied. Practiced. Her advisers made no secret of that. I read dozens of articles about it.
Donald Trump? He reportedly did some preparation. Nothing too arduous. Or at least that was the message put out by his people, who know that he sees himself, and likes to be seen, as someone nimble enough to wing it, a peacock unmoved and unbound by the conventions that lesser birds obey.
Hurray for him. Actually, hurray for her. Harris had the better night by far, and it was partly because she did her homework, as I observed in an analysis of the debate published just a few hours afterward.
But what I didn’t take proper note of — and what all of us scribes and pundits too infrequently acknowledge — is what that says about a person. How important a barometer of her professionalism and character it is.
In fact, we often dismiss or even degrade all the cramming that candidates do by branding their performances “rehearsed,” as if anything that isn’t spontaneous isn’t sincere. As if real talent requires no tending. As if careful planning is inferior, even antithetical, to true inspiration.
Wrong. It reflects contenders’ respect for the positions or promotions they’re seeking. It communicates their lack of pure entitlement. It affirms a crucial ration of humility and an equally important measure of discipline: They accept the need both to work for what they want and to polish themselves in the service of it.
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