"To me, Tuesday's debate comes down to two challenges.

One, Harris needs to come across as confident, sure of herself, in command of facts. She would be well served to toss out one or two new policy ideas, just to quiet the criticism that she's short on specifics. All this, I feel reasonably sure she can do.

The second hurdle is the more worrisome one.

Trump is going to savage her in every way he can think of. It's who he is. He can't believe he's losing to a Black woman, and he can't possibly comprehend the fact that America likes her better.

Harris's favorability rating isn't exactly high, but she was in the red on that score for most of the last four years by 15 or so points"until she became the nominee, when her favorable numbers spiked. Now she's even.

Trump remains 10 points underwater.

He knows there's only one way he can win: He needs to get America to hate Harris.

Right now, people don't. They don't adore her, but they don't hate her. This is very different from 2016, when he was running against someone the right wing had been telling Americans to hate for a quarter-century.

He knows he has seven weeks to do a Hillary on Kamala."

/

Gotta wonder if he's going to creep up behind Harris like he did Hil... that was gross on all sorts of levels, lol.