Minnesota Governor Tim Walz made his debut on the national stage as a vice presidential candidate, in a speech in which he emphasized his small town background and values and contrasted them to a “weird” and “creepy” Donald Trump and J.D. Vance.
“I just have to say it, you know if and you feel it, these guys are creepy and just weird as hell,” Walz said before an energetic Philadelphia rally, repeating words that went viral over the past two weeks and helped vault him to the top of the vice presidential sweepstakes.
His speech in Philadelphia, coming hours after Vice President Kamala Harris announced him as her running mate on the Democratic ticket, was a prime opportunity for him to introduce himself, with the major cable news networks all carrying the address uninterrupted, along with those of Harris and Governor Josh Shapiro, who was passed over as a running mate option.
Much of the attention throughout the day, and in Harris’ remarks, focused on Walz’s biography: growing up in a small Nebraska town, serving in the National Guard, working as a high school social studies teacher and serving as a Friday Night Lights-style football coach who took his team all the way to a state championship.
“Minnesota’s strength comes from our values, our commitment to working together, to see past our differences, to always be willing to lend a helping hand,” Walz said. “Those are the same values I learned on the family farm and tried to instill in my students. I took it to Congress, and to the state Capitol, and now Vice President Harris and I are running to take those very values to the White House.”
At points during his remarks, Walz evoked the spirit of a “happy warrior,” as some pundits have dubbed him. It was also the nickname given to Hubert Humphrey, another Minnesotan who was Lyndon B. Johnson’s vice president.
“It was my students. They encouraged me to run for office,” Walz recounted. “They saw in me what I was hoping to instill in them: A commitment of common good, a belief that one person can make a difference.” It was in 2006 that he “took a leap” and ran for Congress, winning his seat in a district “that had one Democrat since 1892.”
The Harris campaign is hoping that Walz helps to expand the ticket’s appeal to working class and rural voters, a segment where Democrats have lost support. Harris pointed not just to his experience as a football coach, but to his military service and to his skill as a marksman, “winning a bipartisan sharp-shooting contest year after year.”
Walz himself turned the tables on some favorite GOP talking points, attacking his Republican counterpart, J.D. Vance, as an Ivy League elitist, even making a couch joke, and insisting that “I can’t wait to debate” him.
He also signaled that his role on the ticket will be that of attack dog, as he hammered Trump on an issue where Republicans have long believed they have the upper hand: crime.
“Make no mistake, violent crime was up under Donald Trump. That is not even counting the crimes he committed,” Walz said, drawing one of his biggest cheers of the rally.
Later, Walz and Harris spoke to donors on a fundraising call, where she suggested that she had a preference to what to call him. “I actually think of him as Coach Walz, I mean honestly, just in terms of your character, your nature, how you think about lifting folks up.”
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