Kamala Harris and the Democrats did well to have Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz on their national ticket as the vice-presidential nominee. He’s rural, for real. Walz has a broad appeal in the Upper Midwest battleground states, I expect that to trickle down to states like Georgia, Virginia and North Carolina and he is well-versed in the you-betcha vernacular. The blue brand can barely be peddled along the blacktops anymore, but somehow Walz figured out a way to win a congressional seat in a red district and ultimately the governorship.
Republicans will have a hard time defining the 24 Year Army National Guard Veteran as an out-of-control elite liberal. He is an expert marksman, claims he is a better pheasant shooter than his counterpart JD Vance, and suggests that vegetarians should eat turkey since it is not really meat. He hails from West Point, Nebraska and once got pulled over for drunk driving as a young schoolteacher and coach. (He pleaded down to reckless driving and gave up on drinking under his wife’s advice.)
Walz subscribes to the standard Democratic orthodoxy...... pro-choice, supports gay rights, believes in feeding children at school, champions a living wage and backs labor unions. He is no more liberal than the late Hubert Humphrey or Walter Mondale. Walz favors some gun controls, as Ronald Reagan did. He is, in fact, pretty much your White Midwestern dad dude who coached Mankato West High School to a state football title.
As governor, he made way for pipelines supported by union pipefitting members.
He might even be able to get rural areas to sit up from its one-party stupor and listen. Walz’s politics of joy contrasts with his counterpart JD Vance politics of exclusion, snark and denial.
Trump has no clue what life is like in places like Swainsboro, Ga or Alamo, Ga or any small town in rural America. Unfortunately, his brand of politics of negativity, doom and gloom appeals to some voters in rural America. JD Vance got out of rural America at the first opportunity and only looked back to condemn his country cousins in a memoir. Rural America is more than resentful people in red caps. It’s Barnesville, Sandersville, Fort Gaines, Statenville, Nahunta, Irwinton, and first-generation college students at Georgia Southwestern State University or Savannah State University.
Walz gets it. That could be a powerful antidote to the decline of political choice out here in the Lowcountry or Wiregrass regions of rural Georgia and throughout rural America. Rural communities struggling to survive needs an alternative, other than simply more tax cuts, bad roads and more grievance. Walz should use his voice while he can, because Humphrey or Mondale could have told him that nobody listens to the vice president much after November.
The Harris campaign will task Walz with campaigning in the Rustbelt States and Georgia, North Carolina, and maybe even Florida. Simply having a candidate on the national ticket who actually baled hay since (Jimmy Carter) under the Nebraska sun should buck us up.
