In my time as a political consultant, I observed that carrying out a campaign strategy was surprisingly simple. You settled on a basic strategy, emphasizing the candidate’s strong points on issues and character, framing the election in terms favorable to most voters. Then you just carried it out.

Almost always, events would intrude — campaign gaffes, unfavorable public polls, media controversies, surprise initiatives by the opposition. At such points, you’d get lots of advice, from inside and outside the campaign, about how you had to change course and do things differently. The hard part was distinguishing between the nine times out of 10 in which you should, diplomatically if possible, ignore such advice and stick to the strategy, and the one time out of 10 when you should change course.

Looking on from afar, I think there’s a good chance Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign has reached such a point.

Much of Harris’ strategy from President Joe Biden’s withdrawal on July 21, and even before, was obvious: Emphasize former President Donald Trump’s character flaws, build on Democratic voters’ enthusiasm that they were no longer stuck with a sure loser, show off the best candidate’s smile since Ronald Reagan’s.

The hard part was dealing with issues. The Biden-Harris record on inflation and immigration is highly unpopular. Beyond that, on her own as a candidate for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, Harris had taken a number of “woke” positions on issues that are not shared by anything like a majority of general election voters.

Banning fracking, a major industry in Pennsylvania. Decriminalizing illegal border crossing. Abolishing nongovernment health insurance. A mandatory buyback (i.e., confiscation) of so-called assault weapons. Major cuts in funding for U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. Government-paid gender transition surgery for detained illegal immigrants.

How to deal with these now-inconvenient facts? The Harris strategy has been to sweep them aside. Focus, as the candidate of change, on the future. “We can’t afford four more years of this,” running mate Gov. Tim Walz (D-Minn.) bellowed at a Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, rally last weekend. As for those inconvenient issue stands, have a staffer quietly tweet that they’re now, in Nixon press secretary Ron Ziegler’s term, “inoperative.”

Otherwise, hide the candidate — and trust a mostly sympathetic press, something like 90% of whose members want to see Trump lose, not to press hard on any subject that might not help the campaign. As my Washington Examiner colleague Byron York has noted, many journalists are unashamedly, even delightedly, determined not to reveal Harris’ positions on issues lest they help Trump.

This has mostly seemed to work. In the single interview on Aug. 29 that Harris submitted to in her first month as presidential candidate, with Walz included, CNN’s Dana Bash did ask her to explain her changes on issues. “My values haven’t changed,” Harris said, not responding to the question.

Bash did not follow up in what was, bafflingly, a brief interview. (The candidate didn’t have more than a half-hour a month for interviews?) In her single debate with Trump on Sept. 10, Harris was only a bit more forthcoming. “What I have seen is that we can grow and we can increase a clean energy economy without banning fracking,” Harris replied.

This strategy has worked, up to a point. Poll averages two weeks after the debate show Harris a couple of points ahead of Trump nationally, and competitive in target states. Poll analyst Nate Silver’s model Monday gave her a 53% chance of winning the Electoral College.

But that’s well below the 71% chance it gave former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton just before the 2016 election. The RealClearPolitics average of recent polls shows Trump at least 1% ahead in states with 246 electoral votes, Harris that far ahead in states with 226.