The account of "Walz-ing Kamala" is not likely
to become a national ballad as “Waltzing Matilda”
did in Australia, but it will be, in the short term, a
curious and complicated story.
The naming of the largely unknown (outside
Minnesota) Governor Tim Walz to be the
running mate of Kamala Harris, the 2024
presumptive presidential nominee for the
Democrats, was a late-developing surprise.
But then, almost every aspect of this
national election cycle has gone into some
kind of unchartered territory..
Waltz first appeared on the political scene about
20 years ago when he ran for Congress in the
very purple First District —- a mostly rural
southern part of the state. A former Army
National Guard NCO, high school teacher
and coach, he ran as a moderate Democrat in
the district which had been represented by
figures of both parties.
After brief and indistinct terms in Congress,
Walz was elected governor as a Democrat
(DFL) in 2018 and 2022, all the while proposing
policies and legislation further and further to
the progressive left, the same direction the
voter base (most of whom lived in the urban
Twin Cities) was going. During his first term,
he imposed a Draconian pandemic lockdown of
tthe state’’s residents.
He lost much rural and small town support
from voters between 2018 and 2022, but won
re-election with the mammoth GOTV machine
of the DFL in the Twin Cities. A weakened and
ineffective state Republican Party could not
defeat him in 2022, and the DFL carried not
only all statewide offices, but took control of
both houses of the state legislature.This
political trifecta has put in place many new
regulations, taxes and fees, and laws which
have turned most of rural and small town
Minnesotans, small businesspersons,
conservatives and independents into a growing
political opposition.
Nevertheless, Walz’s selection as his party’s
national vice president has been greeted
with much enthusiasm among DFL voters,
many of whom had become discouraged in
the period leading up to President Joe Biden
stepping down from his certain re-nomination
for president in this year’s campaign.
Minnesota is a usually safe state for
Democrats in presidential elections, but until
Joe Biden stepped down, polls were indicating
the state was in play this cycle As soon as
Biden stepped aside, however, polls indicated
the state’s 10 electoral votes would go to the
Democrats once again.
Since Governor Shapiro of Pennsylvania,
Senator Kelly of Arizona or Governor Beshear of
Kentucky are from states where the GOP
ticket now leads in the polls and a vice president
nominee of the Democrats might help reverse
this—- many political strategists and pundits wonder
why Tim Walz, from a state already safe for the
Democrats, was chosen, especially also that his
support from rural and small town voters has
evaporated.
But the same strategists and pundits also
wondered why Republican nominee Donald
Trump chose J.D. Vance, and not Marco Rubio.
Minnesota establishment media, long a source
of pro-DFL bias, predictably hype the Walz
local-boy-makes-good euphoria, and many of
the controversies about Walz’s past, now
being discussed nationally, simply do not appear
in urban Minnesota print and broadcast media.
Republicans in the state and nationally were
relieved that Walz was chosen and not Shapiro
or Kelly. But with so much surprise and
untraditional aspects of the 2024 national
elections, and in so much uncharted political ‘
territory, the ultimate winners and losers when
the votes are counted are yet unknown.
“Hillbilly Elegy” or “Walz-ing Kamala” —- take
your choice.
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Copyright (c) 2024 by Barry Casselman. All rights reserved.
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