Tim Walz: Common-Sense Problem Solver

There could be no better pick for the VP nomination than Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. Kamala needs two things to win this election: she needs to fire up the base, and she needs to appeal to working-class swing voters outside of urban America. Tim Walz is one of the very few politicians in America who can do both.

Walz is the ultimate common sense guy. 

He grew up on a farm in Nebraska, and became a small-town teacher and football coach. He joined the Army National Guard at age 17 and had an outstanding 24-year career there, rising to the rank of Command Sergeant Major. He wasn’t just a small-town teacher though: he became Minnesota Teacher of the Year. He wasn’t just a football coach: he led a team that had been pretty bad in the years before he became a coach to a state championship just a few years later. 

He came to politics late, in his 40s, and was a moderate congressman representing a solidly Republican rural district. According to his congressional biography, he was the “highest-ranking enlisted soldier to ever serve in Congress.” He beat an incumbent and held off strong Republican challenges year after year until he was elected governor in 2018.

When Democrats picked up a trifecta in Minnesota in 2022, even though the statehouse margins were very close, he passed one great piece of legislation after another -- check out this list from More Perfect Union. It includes lots of the progressive agenda Biden and Harris had been working to pass at the federal level: free breakfasts and lunch for schoolchildren, paid Family and Medical Leave, free college tuition for families making under $80,000 a year, a law giving people and small businesses the right to repair their own equipment, the elimination of non-compete clauses in worker contracts, the elimination of many junk fees, the legalization of pot, and the right to abortion. That is a pretty amazing agenda.

Walz is a common sense progressive who gets practical things done that improve people’s lives, and then knows how to talk about those issues and his values in a way can relate to, like here, in his first video for the Harris-Walz campaign.

What a Veep Pick Does for a Ticket

For those pundits convinced that Harris should pick a VP to help deliver a swing state, that whole delivery of a state thing hasn’t been a thing in a very long time. The last time it was a factor was when LBJ delivered Texas for JFK. When it has been tried since, it hasn’t worked. (See John Edwards in North Carolina in 2004.) 

What a Veep pick gives a ticket instead is a symbol of what kind of strategy a campaign is pursuing, especially what kind of voters they are most interested in fighting for. Joe Biden, the kid from working-class Scranton, wanted a running mate who could fire up the base. Kamala Harris is proving that as a presidential candidate, she can do exactly that. Now she needs a running mate who can relate to working-class voters outside of big cities, who can telegraph that the Democratic Party is their party, too.

Progressives and working-class, small-town folks both got a candidate who represents them. This is the most exciting veep choice imaginable.