And the thread started weeks before she made her choice but which includes discussion of Walz and other options can be found here.
Personally I was a bit fearful of the choice, as Minnesota governor Tim Walz is unabashedly progressive. Don’t get my wrong, his views are pretty much identical to my own, as far as I can tell. But this election is so important that I’m willing to go with someone a bit more conservative if they can ensure a win. The stakes, as we all know, are too high for us to lose.
On reflection, though, I am hoping he was chosen after a careful look at polling and demographics and is the result of a strategic decision to go after young, disaffected progressives who were not going to choose between what they saw as two doddering old men, but had their interest piqued a bit by Kamala Harris (but perhaps thought her background as a prosecutor is off-putting), and now can be fully engaged thanks to Tim Walz and his story of evolving from a guns-rights guy to a genuine progressive.
If that demographic can win, I am all for it! What do other Dopers think?
I think that any choice whom Harris had made would have been instantly labeled as a “dangerous, extreme leftist” by the other side, so I’m not particularly that anything Walz has supported as governor is “too progressive.”
I think that policies he can tout strongly, which are progressive, but are also human and common-sense, like universal school breakfasts and lunches, can still play strongly to moderates.
I know little to nothing about Walz or his policies, but from what I’ve read on this Board, he’s a great pick. He satisfies the progressives, he looks the part for the moderates, he speaks well and doesn’t appear to alienate anyone except hard core Trumpists.
I think the key to success for a Harris-Walz ticket is positivity and presenting plans for a bright future. People are so sick of feeling dread.
I think Harris got cowed by the Palestinian faction into not selecting Shapiro.
Shapiro would have been better at delivering a swing state like PA than Waltz. Minnesota is the longest-standing Democratic holdout state in the whole nation; not exactly a spot of need.
The most extreme leftist thing anyone can possibly do in the United States of America is call themselves a “Democrat”. That is the far extreme left end of the political spectrum, according to Republicans. Those accusations just don’t mean anything anymore. I’m not even sure if it even resonates among people on the right at this point, that boy cried wolf too many times.
Watching their first appearance right now and I am thinking Trump never gets cheered like that. People must be going deaf in there if they don’t have ear protection.
There’s a theory that a Minnesotan will be relatable to voters in neighboring states like Wisconsin and Michigan which combined is 25 electoral votes to Pennsylvania’s 19. As a Californian, I can’t really speak to the validity of that theory.
Maybe, but Minnesota is an odd place. It’s technically only light blue, but has never gone to a Republican since 1972. Even Massachusetts went red at one point during that time.
MN isn’t all that different from Wisconsin or Michigan in theory, yet seems impregnably blue.
Part of that is the traditional strength of the Minnesota Democratic-Farm-Labor Party (the MN branch of the national Democratic Party), and that fact that the state, as a whole, has generally stayed fairly progressive – something that Wisconsin traditionally was, as well, but has become somewhat less so in the last couple of decades.
Wisconsin has been pretty reliably blue for the last 35 years except for 2016 (and that was very close). My guess is Clinton just didn’t get people to the polls.
Just to note: I wasn’t only speaking about presidential elections. Thanks to gerrymandering, the GOP solidly controls both houses of the state legislature (though this should change with the institution of new district maps this year), and until the 2023 election, the state Supreme Court was also primarily Republican.
Speaking as a former Wisconsin resident, who still visits regularly, a lot of the state (particularly when you’re outside of Milwaukee and Madison) is seriously MAGA-land now.
Is it possible that Minnesota’s reliable blueness will be reflected in visible overwhelming support within the state, in a way that Shapiro would not have been able to achieve (not because he isn’t great but because Pennsylvania is more fractured politically)?
That’s a genuine question, I’m not sophisticated enough about election facts and dynamics to know the answer. And there are so many moving parts that at best it is a small piece of a big pie.
Still, the Trump campaign will be looking for any and every way to slam both Harris and Walz. If “look at Walz/Shapiro, he can’t even get universal support in his home state” were one way to blast the running mate, they’d probably take it.
No one really is. There will be no shortage of speculation but while there is a science to this there is also an art to it. We’ll probably see people take all side in this and some few will be right and do a victory lap at the end (whatever it is). They will claim they were smart and knew it all along but, mostly, they will just be lucky.
No doubt. We already see MAGA flinging anything and everything to see what will stick. So far they are not having much luck but they will keep trying.
True, but I think my point is getting lost, so one more try: Wisconsin, much like its neighbor Minnesota still is, used to be a progressive state – hell, Robert LaFollette, one of the key figures in the Progressive movement of the late 19th and early 20th Century, was a Wisconsin politician.
That has, IMO, changed in the last 20 years or so, as the state has become more purple.
Well, I just listened to Harris speak in Philadelphia, and now Walz is speaking. And I’m pretty sure that somewhere, some ketchup is sticking to a wall.
Hes quite relatable and likeable.
The opposition can’t come up with much, in fact, they’ve gotten amazingly juvenile.
That tells me they’re flailing.
So be it.
They (Harris/Walz) have my vote.