Harris Decides to Gopher Walz

The news broke just now that Kamala Harris has chosen Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz to be her running mate. This is weird.

It’s weird because nobody would have seen this coming a couple of weeks ago. Then Walz went on Morning Joe and, in the wake of J.D. Vance’s “cat ladies” comment, said, “these guys are just weird.”

One word and he rocketed to national prominence. But it was a good word and it suggested that he had the right, light political touch that could make him an asset. Democrats do not do themselves any favors when they over-dramatize their language. “Existential threats,” whether they are to the planet through climate change or to democracy through Trump, come off as overwrought to most of the public. But “weird.” That sounds about right.

Walz looks like everybody’s grandfather, older than his 60 years. A Forbes backgrounder notes that he was in the Army Reserve and a teacher, first at the Pine River Indian Reservation in South Dakota and later in Mankato, Minnesota, where he was also a coach.

He ran for Congress in 2006 and served six terms, establishing himself as a moderate and winning a seat where Trump won in 2016 and 2020. (His district is interesting. It went for Trump twice, but also Obama twice and for Amy Klobuchar.) He ran successfully for governor in 2018 and was reelected in 2022.

Minnesota should be a lock for Democrats, but he should play everywhere in the Midwest and, like any good Midwesterner, he should be offensive to no one anywhere.

The downside? It’s not about who he is, but who he isn’t. He’s not my first choice, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro. Harris has to win there and he was her best asset in that regard. And in recent days he looked like an even better choice when the hard-left organized against him. In their eyes, he was too supportive of Israel on the one hand and of school vouchers on the other.

By picking Shapiro, Harris could have sent a strong message both within the party and beyond that she was in control. The best thing any Democratic nominee can do is to stand up to the hard-left. They’ll huff and puff, but in the end they won’t fail to vote against Trump or to vote for the first Black woman president. So, Harris had tremendous freedom to move to the center. Being or appearing to be the captive of the left costs a whole lot more votes than it wins.

By choosing Walz she empowers the hard-left and she’ll probably live to regret it. Their demands will never end, they’ll become more extreme the more she gives them and they will never be satisfied. More than anything else that’s why I wanted her to pick Shapiro.

Still, there’s nothing in Walz’s record that is especially hard-left. He hasn’t supported Hamas or called for reparations or Medicare For All, etc. It appears that the left liked him because they hated Shapiro and Mark Kelly. Walz’s record looks almost identical to that of another low-key Midwest governor, Tony Evers.

So, all-in-all, fresh out of the box, Walz looks like a solid choice. But his selection is a missed opportunity to keep the party’s hard-left at arms length. I hope this doesn’t come back to haunt Harris.

Postscript. Here’s how the Wall Street Journal describes Walz this morning: “(As governor, Walz) has governed more to the left than expected. He supported universal free school meals for students, voting rights for the formerly incarcerated, driver’s licenses for migrants who crossed the border illegally, and recreational marijuana, and he signed a law that made abortion a “fundamental right.”” 

I don’t see that as hard-left. That’s center-left mainstream. Feeding kids, marijuana and reproductive freedom are all very popular and I doubt that voting rights for ex-cons or drivers licenses for migrants are especially hot button issues.

Walz also signed into law bills creating paid family and sick leave, a low-income tax credit and a billion dollar investment in affordable housing. Again, all popular and mainstream initiatives.