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Welcome to the presidential race, Tim Walz.
He’s a name few, if anyone, was thinking could be Vice President Harris’ running mate two weeks ago after President Biden stepped aside.
Harris didn’t know the Minnesota governor and former congressman well, if at all, before this process. But his speech with Harris in Philadelphia Tuesday introducing the Harris-Walz ticket to the country made his appeal clear.
Here are some takeaways from what he had to say and what it means for the race:
1. He’s a clear messenger who balances the ticket.
He’s the guy who coined “weird” as an attack line against former President Donald Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, but he didn’t dwell on that in the speech.
He no doubt went after Trump and Vance, but a VP is also supposed to make the top of the ticket look better and bring balance. Walz certainly did that. He said, for example, Harris brings “joy,” but he’s the one known for being joyful. He is giving that to her by proxy.
2. He spoke for the heartland — and for “white guys”
Walz ain’t from San Francisco. He made that clear Tuesday night. And in one off-the-cuff comment, he hit on what could be considered the elephant in the room.
He’s a white guy. Harris is a Black woman, and part of his job — the job of all running mates — is to testify, to bring reassurance to groups that might be skeptical of the person at the top of the ticket. That might be ideological or — when there hasn’t been a woman as president, let alone a Black or South Asian woman in the office — it might be the white guy’s job to reassure other white guys.
“I see you down there. I see those old, white guys,” he said, jokingly pointing to others in the front rows before delivering a pretty progressive message:
“Some of us are old enough to remember when it was Republicans who were talking about freedom. It turns out now what they meant was that the government should be free to invade your doctor’s office. In Minnesota, we respect our neighbors and their personal choices that they make. Even if we wouldn’t make the same choice for ourselves, there’s a golden rule, ‘Mind your own damn business.’ ”
3. He doesn’t come across as an elitist, which has been a huge problem for the Democratic Party.
Walz talked about being a good shot, one of the best, when he was in Congress. In fact, he had a camouflage hat on in the video when he received the call from Harris to be her VP.
He talked about what it's like growing up in a rural community, how neighbors treat each other, about valuing compromise while not compromising his values, he said.
And he talked about being a high school teacher and a football coach. One of his former football players was on CNN after the speech, talking about how Walz helped him and was a father figure, as he was raised by a single mom.
The Democratic Party has had an elitist problem. It started before Trump with Republicans calling them “Limousine Liberals” and “latte-drinking liberals.” But it’s become more acute in the age of Trump. Democrats haven’t been able to connect with the working-class white voters the way the party did decades ago. Walz gave a roadmap for how to talk to them, maybe even saying the same words as others but delivered in a more authentic way.
4. He showed himself to be an effective attack dog
All the other stuff is well and good. But one of the VP running mate’s principal jobs during a campaign is to serve as an effective attack dog.
And Walz showed he has that potential — and can deliver with a smile.
He said of Trump: “He froze in the face of COVID.”
He joked: “Make no mistake, violent crime was up under Donald Trump. And that’s not even counting the crimes he committed.”
And he saved his best for his counterpart, Vance.
“Like all regular people I grew up with in the heartland, JD studied at Yale, had his career funded by Silicon Valley billionaires and then wrote a best seller trashing that community. Come on. That’s not what middle America is. And I gotta tell you. I can’t wait to debate the guy. That is if he’s willing to get off the couch and show up.”
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