Adding Midwest Muscle To Her Ticket. Kamala Harris Picks Minnesota Governor Tim Walz As Running Mate
The Oasis Reporters
August 7, 2024
Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz, Tuesday in Philadelphia.
Confirmed as the Democratic Party candidate for the presidential election, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris in turn picked Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate on Tuesday ahead of the U.S. presidential election in November.
Choosing Walz demonstrates Harris’s efforts to appeal to Midwestern suburban and rural voters as well as union workers.
“Through picking Walz, Harris hopes to send a message of seriousness and stability,” historian Julian Zelizer argued in Foreign Policy. “[H]aving him by her side shows that Harris wants to surround herself with seasoned partners who want to govern.”
Walz, 60, served in the U.S. National Guard for 24 years and worked as a high school teacher before entering Congress and later becoming governor. During his time in Congress from 2007 to 2019, Walz served on the House Armed Services Committee and was a strong critic of the Iraq War, writes FP’s Robbie Gramer.
Walz also opposed then-President Barack Obama’s plan to order military strikes on Syria in 2013 in response to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons.
Walz maintains the Democratic Party’s position of support for Israel but has also criticized its handling of the war in Gaza.
All these are happening, a mere 16 days after President Joe Biden ditched his reelection bid, and now Democrats have a new ticket.
Vice President Kamala Harris just appeared at a rally here in Philadelphia with her pick for running mate — Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota, who to paraphrase an old Heineken beer ad, connects with the parts of the country other Democrats can’t reach.
The thinking behind the pick isn’t hard to spot. Walz is known for winning tough election races, can appeal outside the traditional Democratic coalition and is a good fit for the Blue Wall battlegrounds Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania that Harris may need to sweep to beat Trump in November, according to CNN’s Meanwhile In America.
Most Americans have never heard of Walz. In contrast to the dazzling historic potential at the top of the ticket — Harris would be the first Black female and Indian American president — he looks a lot like most previous VPs. The 60-year-old Walz is a former football coach, National Guard veteran, schoolteacher, and congressman. Few people saw him as a possible VP when Harris suddenly found herself as her party’s new candidate.
But he took off when he coined a new attack on Trump and his VP nominee, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, branding the MAGA pair as just “weird.” It didn’t seem like much, but the line went viral in the Democratic grassroots.
Harris chose Walz over Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, the other finalist in her hurried running mate search.
Shapiro might have helped secure the commonwealth’s 19 electoral votes, but he was criticized by some on the left for his comments condemning the tone of campus protests that erupted over Israel’s assault on Gaza after the October 7 terror attacks.
History suggests that vice presidential nominees don’t lift their partners to the presidency. But Walz, a jocular dad type whose urbanity doesn’t conceal an acidic political tongue, offers a political complement to Harris.
The vice president is banking on a strong showing among minority voters in the great cities like Detroit, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and Milwaukee, and to run up Democratic numbers among suburban and women voters alienated by Trump.
Walz may be able to help most by courting wavering independents not yet convinced by Harris, who has been demonized by Trump as a racial chameleon and uber-liberal California radical.
Midwestern politics has been transformed in recent years by the shift of some White, working-class and male voters from Democrats to Republicans. Some voted for President Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012 but were won over by Trump’s cultural conservatism and populist, nationalist economic values in 2016. If Walz can winnow Trump’s margins in rural areas, he could keep the so-called Blue Wall intact.
Credits:
Foreign Policy
Meanwhile In America (CNN)
MSNBC
Reddit.
