Critics of Kamala Harris miss the point.

She is not running for president to be president. If elected, she has Barack Obama to do that.

She is running so that Donald Trump won’t.

Which is why her campaign slogan should be, “I’m not him.”

And the slogan of the Democratic Party should be, “We’re not them.”

With all due respect, the lady is lighter than air. Not that Joe Biden was ever a member of Mensa, mind you.

The private conversations between the two must have been something for the books.

Harris’s lack of intellectual substance is the main reason she not only dodges the media in general, but she also even dodges reporters who roll over for her.

Indicative of her insecurity and unseriousness is that the only domestic programs she seems to espouse are those lifted from Trump, whether they are about securing the border or no taxes on tips.

As a matter of fact, in her acceptance speech at the Democratic Party convention last week, Harris was more specific about the imagined “bad” things Trump would do as president than the “good” things she would do.

Among the bad things Trump would do, according to Harris, would be to jail his opponents, much the way that Biden/Harris are trying to jail Donald Trump, although she did not mention that part.

She said that Trump would free “violent extremists” who assaulted law enforcement officers at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, the way Biden/Harris routinely ignored antisemitic rioters, including those pro- Hamas protesters demonstrating outside of the convention hall.

She said that Trump would also jail journalists. That, however, is not necessarily a bad idea, given the depths of deceit establishment, left wing journalism has sunken into when it comes to writing about Trump and Republicans.

If you have any doubt about it just monitor for a day The New York Times, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, ABC, NBC, MSNBC, CNN, CBS and so on.

And were Trump to jail journalists, there probably would be more reporters behind bars for crimes against journalism than there currently are criminal illegal immigrants, or Hamas supporters who burn the American flag.

Before the establishment media became corrupt, reporters in the past would rather be jailed than ignored. Now, under the grip of the Democratic Party and its pro-Hamas wing, they are happy to be ignored.

And forget foreign policy. Harris barely mentioned it, and for good reason.

However, an indication of her grasp of foreign affairs was made clear in a 2022 radio interview when she was asked about the war in Ukraine.

She replied: “So, Ukraine is a country in Europe. It exists next to another country called Russia. Russia is a bigger country. Russia is a powerful country. Russia decided to invade a smaller country called Ukraine. So basically, that’s wrong, and goes against everything we stand for.”

There you have it, the Russia/Ukraine war in a nutshell.

So, it is no wonder Harris does not hold any press conferences or give any in-depth television interviews, although she will do an interview with running mate Tim Walz on friendly CNN tonight.  Were she to do a real, hard-hitting solo interview it could be her undoing. She is the most scripted candidate ever to run for president.

Meanwhile you can’t keep Trump off the news as he continues to hold rallies, conduct press conferences and answer question from the press every day.

While Trump is still under a partial gag order in relation to his hush money case, Harris’ gag order is total, and it is not court-ordered but self-imposed to boot.

Harris and her handlers want to run out the clock and keep her as far away from the media as possible, even though the establishment media is totally in the tank.

An example is how the progressive press puppets vilified Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. for suspending his independent presidential campaign and endorsing Trump.

Had he endorsed Kamala Harris instead, they would have awarded him an Oscar, an Emmy, a Grammy, two Pulitzers, the Nobel Peace Prize and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

You get the point.

Peter Lucas is a veteran political reporter. Email him at: peter.lucas@bostonherald.com