Walz is an ex football coach. He used to teach social sciences in a school. He is a community organiser and a socialist at heart. He is against guns, stands for LGBTQ rights, abortion rights, free meals for all children in school and paid family and medical leave for employees. Most crucially, he backs the ‘Free Palestine’ movement
Between ‘Dangerous Donald’ and ‘weird’, the latter sounds better. It’s just that ‘weird’ clicked, and clicked good.
Tim Walz is the running mate of Kamala Harris. He is affable and affectionate. The next-door friendly dad. And he has a sense of humour — something badly lacking in the American poll campaign.
Walz is the Governor of Minnesota. Earlier, in an interview on MSNBC, he had said of the Republican Party: “These are weird people on the other side. They want to take books away. They want to be in your exam room.”
It clicked. The Democrats loved it.
Walz is a former football coach. He used to teach social sciences in a school. He is a community organiser and a socialist at heart. He is against free-floating guns, stands for LGBTQ rights, women’s rights, abortion rights, free meals for all children in school, and paid medical leave for employees.
Most crucially, he supports the ‘Free Palestine’ movement, despite the powerful, cash-rich Israeli lobby’s dark shadow on American politics.
Besides, he has been endorsed by Bernie Sanders, leader of the Left among the Centrist, Right-wing- liberals of the Democrats. Sanders represents high credibility, especially among the millennials.
Along with him are the pro-Palestine, Left-leaning members of ‘the Squad’ — Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, and others. More so, and surprisingly, he is being backed by hawks like Hillary Clinton.
Indeed, he is the finest ‘Leftist’ on this side of the spectrum, and his choice by Kamala Harris as her vice-presidential candidate, positions her politically, right there where she wants — between the centrists, liberals and progressive socialists, a rainbow coalition which is becoming formidable by the day. No wonder, Harris, the sudden choice, has peaked with such lucidity and strength, that Trump finds himself on a pretty sticky wicket.
Not surprising that JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, has called Walz “a joke” ” and “one of the most Far-Left radicals in the entire United States government at any level”. Predictably, the Democrats are digging up all they can from the past of Vance.
The Atlantic reports (August 8, 2024) that in a rally in Philadelphia with Kamala Harris, a smiling Walz said that she brings joy to her work. His teacher wife, Gwen, too got a compliment. He loved his kids, he said. Then, he said, rather aggressively: “Violent crime was up under Donald Trump. That’s not even counting the crimes he committed.”
Vance, in contrast, is making one goof-up after another. So, who are childless cat ladies?
On Fox News, in 2021, Vance had called Democrats and the Joe Biden regime, “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too”.
He said: “It’s just a basic fact – you look at Kamala Harris, (transportation secretary) Pete Buttigieg, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – the entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children. And how does it make any sense that we’ve turned our country over to people who don’t really have a direct stake in it?”
The Democrats shot back: “Women are paying attention – and will use their power at the polls.”Vance and Trump, they said, were “not pro-family, they are anti-women”.
Polls showed that even the Republicans did not like what he had said Just about 15 per cent agreed. And almost 65 per cent Americans said that they don’t agree with Vance.
The Atlantic reports that he lacks nuance. When a reporter asked, “What makes you happy?” — instead of delivering one of many plausible responses — “my family,” “sports,” “movies,” even “Donald Trump’s vision for America” if he wanted to keep things campaign-focused — Vance snapped at the reporter, called the question bogus, and ranted about Harris.
“His attempts at appearing relatable have landed awkwardly: Answering another reporter’s question about why someone in Wisconsin should want to have a beer with him, his response quickly devolved into a critique of how the media ‘slanders’ Trump, a guy who he says ‘likes normal people’. The whole thing came off as unnatural and, again, somewhat hostile to the questioner.”
Vance had opposed Trump at one time. His wife, Usha Vance, was reportedly a supporter of the Democrats. There are clear pointers that most Republicans are not comfortable with him. Undoubtedly, he has taken the Trump campaign a few notch down. And with the entry of Walz, his fate seems to be sealed.