By Kindler
VP Kamala Harris has so many good candidates to choose from for her running mate that it would be hard to go wrong. As I’ve been closely watching and learning more about these contenders, I’ve gone back and forth on whom I favor, but have now landed on Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as the one who seems best suited for the job.
Presidential tickets have always been about balance, and so, while I’m not normally a conventional wisdom kind of guy, I do accept the consensus that an exciting candidate like Harris, who would represent so many firsts, would be well matched with a frankly more boring white guy who is an otherwise solid, progressive, compatible choice. This would, sadly but necessarily, take superb public servants like Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg off the table.
But many excellent Democratic veep choices remain. Walz, who had not previously been on my radar, would bring a range of assets to the ticket. A Midwestern governor could help nail down the absolutely essential “Blue Wall” states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania – as well as the Nebraska “Blue Dot” that Democratic Hopium prophet Simon Rosenberg has flagged, the one separately counted district that could put us over the top in a very tight race. As it turns out, Walz was born in a tiny town of 400 people in Nebraska.
Walz’s rural origins and appeal are another source of balance and strength. A U.S. House member for 12 years, Walz repeatedly won re-election in the kind of rural area where Dems have been getting killed in recent years. While obviously we are not going to win much of the countryside in 2024, I am a strong advocate for not just allowing it to fall deeper and deeper into a racist, fascist, reactionary muck. We must continue to make the case with rural as well as urban and suburban residents for an America that respects the dignity and liberties of all, with a government led by thoughtful and compassionate people rather than extremist demagogues. The more inroads we make there, the better.
And Walz has already demonstrated brilliantly how to make the case to voters in the countryside, saying recently on MSNBC:
“People like JD Vance know nothing about small town America, and he gets it all wrong. It’s not about hate, it’s not about collapsing in. The golden rule there is mind your own damn business. Their policies are what’s destroyed rural America. They’ve divided us….”
In another TV interview, he brilliantly reframed the race, using the kind of simple, culturally resonant language Democrats don’t employ often enough:
“These are weird people on the other side: they want to take books away, they want to be in your exam room – and that’s what it comes down to. And don’t get sugarcoating this – these are weird ideas. Listen to them speak, listen to how they talk about things…like you said, they told them that they shouldn’t talk about race. They can’t help it! It is built into their DNA…A robber baron real estate guy and a venture capitalist trying to tell us they understand who we are? They don’t know who we are.”
All that and more crisply delivered in 1:15 minutes, which is how much time TV news stations give you – if you’re lucky.
Peer just below the surface and Walz delivers deep strengths and connections with multiple key constituencies. He is favored by labor unions for his long support of labor issues like the minimum wage, which would help him take the place of strong union supporter Joe Biden on the presidential ticket. He spent a couple of decades as a school teacher and 24 years in the Army National Guard – a useful asset, to be honest, for our ticket to make the case for a woman commander in chief to the too-often patriarchal military community.
As governor with the smallest of legislative majorities, Walz has delivered an impressive array of strong progressive policies to Minnesota, from moving the state to 100% clean energy to legalizing marijuana to imposing universal background checks and a red flag law for firearms.
Though only a few months older than Kamala Harris, Walz conveys the sort of reassuring, calm and reasonable old guy vibes that Joe Biden provided in winning the presidency in 2020. Quite honestly, he reminds me of my dearly departed Chicago Dad at his middle-aged peak.
While I’m open to many of the great options on the potential Dem veep list, I haven’t been able to find any that bring all of Walz’s assets with so few downsides. What do you all think?
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