Lopez: Tim Walz is a regular guy. That’s exactly what Harris needs

Vice President Kamala Harris named Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate, bringing to the ticket a skilled executive with folksy charm who has shown he isn’t afraid to embrace policies that lean on the government’s ability to improve people’s lives.

Walz, 60, is, in many ways, the perfect counterbalance to Harris. He brings deep experience as a governor, House contacts from his six terms as a congressman, and an everyman backstory that made him stand out amid the usual elite lawyer candidates.

With a single word — “weird” — Walz pulled off something few candidates for the job have ever done. He reframed the entire Democratic message. Gone was the casting of Donald Trump as some dark lord threatening democracy. Instead, Walz tried an old schoolyard tactic — casting the bully and his gang as weirdos. The taunt shrank Trump, putting him in a new and mocking light.

Social media lit up, interview requests poured in, and before long, weird became the word on every Democrat’s lips.

But Walz brings far more than quips. He has a strength that Harris is wise to tap: a strong record of accomplishments that proves to voters that he can deliver.

More importantly for Harris, Walz knows how to sell that message in a way that resonates with Middle America — and across the country. Democrats too often have been cowed by Republican attacks, too fearful to fully own their agenda, whether the issue was reproductive rights, climate change, or curbing tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations.

Walz takes a different approach. “It’s not about banking political capital for the next election,” he said after signing several pieces of historic legislation last year. “It’s about burning political capital to improve lives.”

‘What a monster!’

In a recent CNN interview, Jake Tapper noted that under Walz, Minnesota had legalized recreational marijuana, passed background checks on guns, expanded LGBTQ protections, implemented tuition-free college for low-income Minnesotans and approved universal free breakfast and lunch for school kids. Would that record be an asset, Tapper asked, or just allow Trump to label Walz another big government liberal?

It was the type of question that has left many Democrats stammering. Walz just grinned. “What a monster!” he said. “Kids are eating and having full bellies so they can learn, and women are making their own health care decisions… And we’re a top-five business state. … I’m more than happy to take the label.”

Since Walz began bombarding the airwaves, something in him seems to have touched voters weary of the bombastic negativity and policy-free gibberish that has marked Trump’s time on the national stage. They see themselves in him — a guy who wears a suit when he has to but otherwise pops on a ball cap to cover his balding head, dons a worn Carhartt jacket (it’s a Midwest thing) over a flannel shirt, and gets to work. The honeymoon may not last, but for now, his fans have flooded social media with humorous variations on the America’s Dad theme, with one speculating that Walz would start his VP interview answering national security questions and end it wearing a headlamp as he fixed the wiring in the White House attic.

Walz talks, acts and dresses like a regular guy because he is a regular guy. I’ve covered him since he first ran for Congress in 2006, fresh out of the classroom at Mankato West High School. Fast-talking, idealistic and excitable, he managed to unseat a longtime Republican incumbent and flip the district from red to blue. Preaching a message of “One Minnesota” that blurred perceived divisions between urban and rural, he rose to governor and was reelected.

He grew up in a town in Nebraska that was so small his graduating class had 25 students. Soon after high school, he enlisted in the Army National Guard, working in heavy artillery and retiring after 24 years, having reached the rank of command sergeant major.

Walz is the son of a teacher who became a teacher and married a teacher. While Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance pushes private vouchers, Walz is steeped in the ethic of public schools and knows that schools are the lifeblood of a community, especially in rural America.

When he was still in high school, Walz’s father was diagnosed with lung cancer and died soon after. The governor recalls his family’s struggle to get by on survivor benefits and the years it took his mother to pay off the medical debt that insurance didn’t cover.

Freedom and fairness

All of this combined to make Walz someone who makes no apologies for the government’s ability to level the playing field for the average American and those down on their luck. He will bring vulnerabilities, too, as would any running mate. He’ll be expected to justify his strict handling of the pandemic and his decisions around using National Guard troops during the George Floyd protests. Republicans in Minnesota have been honing their talking points against him for years.

Harris, for her part, has yet to define her vision for the country. That’s understandable, given that she is only two weeks into her candidacy. However, Walz’s selection may provide a bit of a roadmap.

Republicans are skilled at casting Democratic priorities such as affordable health insurance, child care, paid family leave and higher minimum wages as evidence of a nanny state. Minnesota stands in contrast, having enacted many of those goals and still ranking as one of the top states for business. That’s no accident. From its airport and roads to its workforce, businesses know that Minnesota under Walz has invested in itself and its people.

Michael Brodkorb, a former Republican operative turned podcaster, said recently of Walz that “it’s part of his political DNA to be able to soften up his critics, win over people, and win in Republican areas.” That could prove critical for Harris as she fortifies the blue wall states, particularly Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Minnesota, which Trump has vowed to flip.

The choice should be clear now between Trump’s dystopian version of America as a terrible place with rigged institutions and a weak democracy and a Harris-Walz ticket intent on building a new definition of freedom and fairness that embraces this country’s diversity, strives for equity and leaves out no one.

Patricia Lopez is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. She is a former member of the editorial board at the Minneapolis Star Tribune, where she also worked as a senior political editor and reporter. ©2024 Bloomberg. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency.