Now that they’ve been unburdened by what has been, Vice President Kamala Harris’s economic policy allies are working on a message to address what can be. Apologies for that groaner. But establishing a clear and coherent message has been a critical priority for the Harris campaign over the last week as she sought to reverse voters’ dismal attitudes about the economy. Who’s in her ear? Harris’s kitchen cabinet includes former aides like Mike Pyle, a former top executive at BlackRock, as well as venture capitalist and longtime adviser Rohini Kosoglu, your host reported alongside POLITICO trade policy wiz Gavin Bade. Key former aides like Deanne Millison, who now works on manufacturing policy at Ford, as well as Kristine Lucius and Ike Irby, are also in the mix. From our report: “At a meeting on Tuesday led by the campaign’s policy director Grace Landrieu, Pyle, Kosoglu and other members of Harris’s economic inner circle provided guidance to a network of outside economists and consultants on how the vice president thinks about economic matters and how the campaign’s messaging might evolve to reflect the presumptive Democratic nominee, four people who attended the event told POLITICO.” So far, there haven’t been any substantive policy shifts from President Joe Biden’s platform. It was also Harris’s platform, after all, and the vice president’s allies are quick to note that her campaign will continue to highlight their shared economic track record. But Harris’s ascendance has sharpened the focus on policies that address “the care economy” — i.e. child care, elder care, health care — rather than the overall macro environment. (As always, read Victoria Guida.) That messaging is much more in step with Harris’s historic approach to economic policy. “A lot of times, what she focuses on in those big, big macroeconomic discussions is: Let's get granular here. How is this going to work?” Oak Tree Strategies President Nathan Barankin, Harris’s former chief of staff, told your host. “She wants to drill down to the greatest level of certainty that can be acquired to figure out who's going to actually benefit from turning left or turning right on a particular decision.” What does that approach mean in practice now that she’s running for president in the general election? The Californian is starting to tack closer to the center on policies she’d touted as a senator and as a candidate in the 2020 presidential campaign. She supported a ban on fracking in 2019, now she does not. One of her signature legislative proposals — which would have granted sizable tax credits to middle-class earners — required a repeal of former President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cuts. If she allowed all of those cuts to expire, it would violate her pledge to not raise taxes on those making less than $400,000. As Adam Cancryn reports, echoing Biden’s oft-repeated pledge also “effectively rules out the prospect that Harris could embrace far more progressive policies as a candidate — such as massively expanding Social Security benefits.” Barankin described the policies Harris rolled out earlier in her career as “value principles” that would represent a starting point for what she would like to achieve. Some would be politically impossible, even if Democrats were to secure majorities in both houses. But when “you run for president, you’ve got to articulate your values. And a lot of times you put out proposals that implement aspects of your values,” he said. For Harris, that does not mean those proposals are “set in stone, and [that] she would never consider anything else in order to achieve those similar objectives.” IT’S MONDAY — Some people use “Californian” to signify squishiness. It’s important to remember the same descriptor applied to Billy Martin. Send tips and suggestions to ssutton@politico.com.
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