Nolan Finley: Money isn’t talking in the presidential race

Money can sell a political message, but it can’t buy one.

Vice President Kamala Harris is proving no amount of cash can cover for a candidate who has nothing to say to voters.

The numbers are astounding. Harris raised $222 million in September, bringing her three-month total to $632 million. The monthly haul was more than three times the $67 million her Republican rival, former President Donald Trump raked in.

And that’s just the candidate’s take. Outside groups have raised more than $1 billion for Harris, making her the fastest candidate to ever reach the billion-dollar mark.

Combined, the Biden-Harris campaigns have spent $714 million in this election cycle, compared to $255 million by Trump.

By the time the October numbers come in, Harris will be the undisputed fundraising and spending champ of any presidential candidate in history.

Democratic interests are investing heavily in electing Harris, or perhaps in beating Trump. And what’s been the return on such a big play?

The race is neck-and-neck, with Trump edging slowly but steadily ahead in the polls.

Harris, a billion-dollar candidate, hasn’t been able to pull away from an opponent who more than half the nation views unfavorably, and who has struggled to raise funds. On the strength of her spending alone she should be demolishing Trump at this point in the campaign.

In politics, money only talks when a candidate has something to say. The Democratic string-pullers who orchestrated Harris’ nomination believed they could take a poorly defined nominee and, with massive amounts of marketing, craft her into the youthful, dynamic and forward-looking candidate American voters coveted, without subjecting her to the public scrutiny that would expose the hoax.

Turns out, they are selling a brightly decorated but empty box.

Harris has spent most of the cash raised on her behalf on tearing down Trump. But voters already are intimately familiar with Trump’s flaws, and his supporters have discounted them. A large number might have been persuaded to abandon Trump had Harris sold herself as an acceptable alternative.

She couldn’t do it. She’s so fearful of a flub that she talks and talks without saying anything of substance. The campaign should have settled on defining in detail five things Harris would do for America and sent her off to discuss them in masterful detail.

But all Harris and her handlers could come up with is, “I’m not Donald Trump and I’m not Joe Biden.”

For a lot of voters this year, that may be all they want. But there’s not enough of them yet to put her over the top. The rest are waiting for her to say and do something that looks and sounds presidential. They’re looking for a message that sears in their minds exactly why they should vote for her. Instead, the No. 1 beef about Harris is voters don’t know who she is or what she stands for.

Even with all that money, Harris hasn’t been able to buy an identity.

Nolan Finley writes a column for the Detroit News.