In the buildup to her announcement of a running mate, the smart money and many of the hints dropped by the Kamala Harris campaign suggested the Democratic presidential nominee would select Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro to join her ticket. There were three good reasons to do so: Shapiro is very popular, as close to a centrist as any prominent Democrat in 2024, and in charge of the most important swing state in the nation. The selection would completely make sense. But at the 11th hour, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz emerged stage left.
Evidently fearful that Shapiro being Jewish, pro-Israel, pro-fracking, and pro-school choice would cost her too much support among her progressive faithful, Vice President Harris doubled down on her far-left image by selecting a progressive who has supported many of the radical policies Harris championed in 2020 but has since renounced. Walz is a plainspoken Midwesterner, described as folksy and jovial. But it is no secret that the 60-year-old former schoolteacher and six-term member of the US House was atop the wish list for progressives and union bosses. In many ways, he mirrors Joe Biden, a one-time mainstream liberal who went woke in 2020.
At the big rollout in Philadelphia Tuesday evening, Walz appeared giddy, exuberant beyond measure to be added to a team that is now likely to be a heavy underdog, a status Harris has appeared to embrace. But before the VP and her VP-designee arrived, Shapiro gave Democrats a taste of what they are missing, with a heavily applauded stemwinder extolling the virtues of the woman who chose not to run with him. While Walz’s speech was solid, it left few footprints and suffered in comparison to Shapiro’s.
This leads to an obvious question: Since the world is no longer bending the knee to BLM, why in the world would a largely unpopular, unvetted candidate pass over a VP choice who would clearly improve her prospects and pick someone who is a living reminder of the murderous riots of 2020 and all those left-wing policies she claims not to favor anymore? Why would Harris pick someone directly tied to Minnesota when she is already under attack for raising funds to release violent rioters in Minneapolis?
Talk about weird.
Tim Walz: The Record Cuts One Way
It’s not like there isn’t plenty of evidence of Walz’s progressive leanings. His record is brimming with far-left policies and statements. Perhaps his most revealing remark was that “one person’s socialism is another person’s neighborliness.” But his words are less disturbing than his actions – or lack thereof. His first executive order as governor was to form a council on DEI – diversity, equity (not equality), and inclusion. He stood by and did nothing until it was too late, as violent BLM-inspired rioters set fire to Minneapolis in 2020. He supported defunding the police. He proposed a carbon-free agenda and an end to all carbon-based fuels in his state by 2040. He has embraced policies allowing convicted felons to vote and for illegal aliens to receive taxpayer-funded healthcare and free college. He advanced a law to require tampons in boys’ bathrooms at public schools and created a hotline for citizens to report their neighbors for Covid protocol violations.
Walz also fully supports the Biden-Harris border policies. He fought to make Minnesota a sanctuary state. He issued an executive order that allowed Minnesota children to obtain irreversible transgender surgeries whether their parents consent or not. On the most explosive social issue of the day, he signed into law legislation that allows a woman to have an abortion all the way up to the point of birth, which plays right into Trump’s assertion that it is Democrats, not Republicans, who are extreme on abortion. While the GOP is unlikely to win on that issue, the charge of absolutism on abortion might suppress the Democrats’ built-in advantage on the only significant issue that favors them.
At the same time, we are on the edge of a region-wide war in the Middle East, with Iran, strengthened by Biden’s overtures, now threatening to attack Israel and blow the conflict wide open. Incredibly, this administration has offered no response to the recent Iranian attack on US assets and personnel in Iraq – not even a statement. Does Harris believe a progressive governor from the upper Midwest is well positioned to join her in bringing peace to the region – or to Ukraine?
But the problems tied to selecting a full-on progressive for VP don’t stop there. For some time, the Biden/Harris campaigns have attempted to expand their appeal beyond their Democratic base to Republicans and right-leaning independents who voted in the primaries for Nikki Haley, believing there were enough Never-Trumpers in the bunch to boost their prospects significantly. But that viable strategy is severely compromised now that Haley called the Walz selection “a win for open borders, socialism, and Iran.” She had already ordered the “Haley Voters for Harris” (as distinct from the “White Dudes for Harris”) movement to cease, desist and, stand down from their association with the former South Carolina Governor, who endorsed Trump prior to the Republican National Convention.
A Riverboat Gamble by Kamala Harris?
It has long been conventional political wisdom that picking a vice-presidential nominee to balance a ticket in any number of ways is desirable. In fact, it may have been the only thing conventional about Donald Trump in 2016, when he selected Mike Pence to calm the nerves of conservatives and Christians. In 2008, Barack Obama picked Joe Biden to reassure the DC establishment – just as Ronald Reagan did in tapping George H.W. Bush in 1980 – while John McCain chose Sarah Palin to enliven his moribund campaign. In 2000, George W. Bush selected Dick Cheney to bolster his foreign policy credentials. In 1992, Bill Clinton chose someone similar to him, Al Gore, for almost esoteric reasons; the two together effectively projected an image of youth and vitality in contrast to Bush, who appeared disinterested and spent. Going back to 1988, Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts selected conservative Democrat Lloyd Bentsen of Texas to balance off his image as a northeast liberal, while Bush went with Dan Quayle, a choice that remains a mystery to this day.
However, it is hard to figure out what exactly Tim Walz brings to the Democratic ticket. While all the VP candidates above were already national figures, Walz is unknown to 90% of the nation. He brings a typical Midwestern upbringing and is courteous and hard-hitting with his progressive rhetoric. But Trump already tapped a VP who is well-known and closely associated with the heartland, JD Vance, so it would appear any boost Walz could provide in the swing states of the upper Midwest would be minimal. And Minnesota, while being pursued by Trump, is a blue state and not a swing state, whereas Pennsylvania is.
This was the first significant decision made by the vice president since she was elevated to the top of the ticket. Her seemingly last-minute decision is being widely questioned – and cheered by the Trump campaign, which clearly hoped Shapiro would not be picked and that some progressive would. Well, their hopes were realized.
To the matter of her thinking, if Harris had favored or clearly intended to pick Walz from the start of her truncated vice-presidential search, then the shock value of this announcement would have been minimal. If Shapiro – or other relative moderates like Sen. Mark Kelly from the key battleground of Arizona or Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear – had been chosen, the left could lay claim to a center-left ticket and energize both wings of the party, but now it is progressive from end to end. And Harris will have a much harder case to make in explaining away Walz’s radical record – and her own since it will now be under extreme scrutiny with no moderating influence from her understudy.
Of course, it could be that the chemistry between the two was, as Harris suggests, a pivotal factor and that, as a two-term governor, Walz would serve as a seasoned partner. And she obviously does not disapprove of his sterling progressive credentials. One way or another, Kamala Harris has staked her campaign on a decision that immediately puts her and the left on defense, instead of on offense, where she could have gone with Shapiro, Beshear, or Kelly. But now, the campaign will have a doubly hard lift, needing somehow to position not just Kamala Harris but her running mate as “right down the middle,” as Nancy Pelosi described the Minnesota Governor. Good luck with that.
