Harris picks a spicy VP in Minnesota’s Tim Walz, who called Trump ‘weird’ and it stuck | Opinion
What does her first major decision as a presidential candidate say about Kamala Harris? In picking Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her vice presidential nominee, Harris chooses a candidate who hasn’t offended a significant wing of the Democratic base but can speak to rural and regional voters Democrats have been losing to Republicans on pocketbook issues.
This selection appears to be based on calculus rather than natural camaraderie. It is reminiscent of Joe Biden’s selection of Harris as his nominee for vice president four years ago. Biden looked beyond fellow old white men to broaden his ticket’s appeal. Harris, seeking to be the nation’s first woman president, chose somebody complementary as well.
Harris’ choice of Walz implicitly says something significant about her and how she might lead at the top of the Democratic ticket. Harris chose to energize a wider swath of Democrats, wavering independents and disillusioned Republicans rather than narrowly gravitating to someone like Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a former prosecutor like her.
With this pick, the native Bay Area resident (born in Oakland, and ascended to public office in San Francisco) is stepping out from President Joe Biden’s shadow and the ranks of California political heavyweights Harris who once mentored her until she rose higher than any of them as the presidential nominee of their party.
Harris could have shored up a bigger electoral prize in Pennsylvania with the selection of Shapiro. But he had baggage of his own, a devout Jew whose pro-Israel stances had already enflamed the pro-Palestine wing of the party.
She could have picked Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, a former astronaut, Navy veteran and rising star who helped turn his once-red state blue.. But Kelly has rankled some union leaders for opposing legislation that would make it easier for workers to organize.
She could have gone with one of the party’s most popular members and arguably the star of the Biden cabinet, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. But it’s unclear whether the country is ready to elect a woman of Asian and Jamaican descent as president and a gay man as vice president, even one who served in the military.
To consider Walz as merely a candidate by deduction, however, underestimates his potential. The Democratic ticket has a sense of seriousness and stability that former President Donald Trump and Republican running mate J.D. Vance lack.
Walz has captured considerable national attention thanks to a single-word utterance, recently calling Republican opponent Donald Trump “weird.” To large cross-sections of America, Walz may be the most potent Democrat on the campaign stump to go after Trump both personally and politically.
Trump “doesn’t laugh unless he is laughing at someone,” Walz recently said. Trump has “weird stories and an inability to connect like a human being in any way.”
The straight-shooting Walz is pure Middle America, born in Nebraska. He was drawn to a career as a high school teacher, coaching the football team one year to a state championship. By day he was a member of the National Guard. He chose politics and public policy in his “retirement.”
Walz is 60, no spring chicken (Harris is 59), but no geriatric either. He poses quite the contrast to Trump’s vice presidential pick, two-year Ohio Senator Vance, who has repeatedly questioned the wisdom of public service for women who have not had children themselves.
Shapiro and Kelly in particular had some appeal given how they were from swing states that are crucial for both Republicans and Democrats to win come November. Historically, however, selections based on perceived home-field advantages are the exception rather than the rule. Harris provided no geographic appeal to Biden, coming from California with her experience as state Attorney General and San Francisco District Attorney before her service in the Senate.
Harris is a prosecutor who learned politics. In Walz, she picked somebody who is gifted at prosecuting the case against Trump. That’s a skill that the top of this ticket truly values. And with precious little time to make its case, every campaign stop and every speech will matter to the Harris-Walz ticket.
Now Walz goes under the magnifying glass. He must endure the sometimes vicious vetting within his party and the coming insults from Trump, which are as sure as the sun. If Harris truly picked wisely, the Democrats will have themselves a fresh alternative to another Trump candidacy that many Americans say they have badly wanted.
This story was originally published August 6, 2024 at 9:10 AM