After President Biden’s disastrous June 27 debate with former President Donald Trump, the Democratic party’s base fell into a deep depression with poll after poll indicating that Biden was headed toward defeat in the November election, and Republicans were in a good position to retain control of the House of Representatives and take over the U.S. Senate. With growing pressure from party leaders and down ballot candidates worried that Biden was dragging their chances for election victory down with him, the President ended his candidacy on July 21st and endorsed his Vice President Kamala Harris to run as the party’s nominee.
Not long after this historic party shakeup, Vice President Harris emerged as a unifying force within the party, generating new energy and excitement which quickly translated into record fundraising and an impressive turnaround in polls finding she had reversed the party’s fortunes and now leads in key battleground states. As she electrified large crowds at campaign rallies, her next challenge was to select a vice presidential running mate.
Although conventional wisdom suggested Harris should pick a centrist candidate to appeal to suburban and moderate voters, in the end she selected Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who had a unique set of qualifications. Walz, worked as a high school teacher, football coach, and served in the Army National Guard for 24 years. He then ran for office and was elected for six terms, representing a conservative-leaning, rural Minnesota congressional district, then was elected twice as the state’s governor where he won a long list of progressive legislative victories while retaining statewide popularity. Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Branko Marcetic, a staff writer with Jacobin magazine, who explains why he believes that the selection of Tim Walz as a vice presidential candidate represents a significant change in U.S. politics.
BRANKO MARCETIC: He came in as governor when the Republicans in Minnesota controlled the state Senate, so he had a divided government. You know, he didn’t even campaign on a very ambitious platform, but he had certain things he wanted to do. I think he wanted to pour money into education. He wanted to fix the state’s infrastructure and he was going to do it through keeping the gas tax in place.
He was going to keep the state’s public health care system going effectively by trying to impose a (provider) tax and that required a lot of compromise. And working with Republicans – which was certainly in terms of his rhetoric – seemed to genuinely believe him. But what was, I think, unique about him is that once the period of divided government ended, which it did in 2022 with that election, once he had this very narrow majority, it was very similar situation to what the Democrats had at the start of Biden’s term. He just went full steam ahead and him and the Minnesota legislature. This wasn’t just him. It was also the Democratic Farmer Labor party of Minnesota. They made this concerted decision that they were just going to, you know, use and spend the political capital they had accumulated over the years to pass, a flurry of legislation.
And, the way that people describe this record, as they say, oh, it’s a very progressive record. It sort of imply they did all these kind of things that were a progressive wish list. And suddenly that is true to some extent, he did a lot of things in social policy that progressives were very friendly towards, things like codifying Roe v Wade, banning conversion therapy, certain criminal justice reforms.
But he also did a lot of pro-worker things that were popular across the board. If you actually look at the polling in Minnesota, even Republicans and independents were very much in favor of things like paid family and medical leave. Legalizing recreational marijuana. Some of the pro-worker reforms, like banning non-compete clauses for workers for instance, that was just one of several kind of things that were done to improve worker standing.
And also basically sending people, they call them “Walz checks”. They were these tax rebates, sending people direct checks that helped them during a time of inflation. If you look at polling, a lot of people actually wanted them to be bigger. So even though he’s painted as kind of this ultra-progressive governor, you know, a lot of stuff that he did was pretty popular, across party, ideological, even geographical lines.
You know, the urban-rural divide in Minnesota.
SCOTT HARRIS: You make the point in your article that Kamala Harris’s decision not to pick Josh Shapiro in some ways defied conventional wisdom that a progressive candidate like Kamala Harris should pick a centrist, should pick someone who will appeal to those on the fence, centrist voters out there. And you note that this choice really says something substantial about the change in U.S. politics. Maybe talk about that.
BRANKO MARCETIC: Yeah. back in the day, not even that long ago, Shapiro would have been the obvious choice. You know, his background as a lawyer, you know, went to an elite college. He was against banning fracking. He angered unions with some of his positions on school vouchers. And he wants to cut the corporate tax. Right? He’s a guy who has calibrated his politics to accommodate a wide variety of right-wing positions.
And that used to be kind of common sense, which is what makes a good politician. This is what makes an accomplished politician and what makes him popular, and what will make someone an appealing candidate in U.S. politics. And that’s what shifted. I mean, reportedly, one of the things that drew Harris to Walz, besides the fact that Shapiro was seen as someone who was very ambitious and wanted to be president one day and might undercut her and Walz said, apparently, “I have no plans to be president. I just want to do whatever you want me to do.”
But besides that was the fact that he had passed all this stuff because Harris herself is looking to do a version of what Walz had done in Minnesota, on the national stage. She wants to invest in childcare and make it more affordable, for instance. There’s been talk that she wants to bring back the child tax credit, make it permanent and other certain progressive reforms.
These used to be considered toxic traits for a politician — to have a record of actual accomplishments of actually making people’s lives better in this day — to use the money that they had, the public money that they had accrued to make changes in people’s lives that are urgent and necessary. That was always a knock on them. What Walz represents is a shift in that attitude, where, if you look at the attacks on Walz that have predominated over the last two weeks, there hasn’t really been “yeah they call him radical, you know,” but it hasn’t really been about the most popular stuff that he’s passed. It hasn’t been about the pro-worker reforms, or the universal school lunches or legalizing marijuana. None of that.
It’s either been reforms that have allowed more dignity for transgender people, so it’s been attacks on transgender people effectively. And it’s been about the George Floyd protests and it’s been about his military service. None of that really has to do with any kind of progressive stuff he did as governor.
So it shows that the Republicans are going to understand this is not useful terrain for them to fight on. I think that is a shift that began in 2016. It happened because of the Bernie Sanders candidacy. It happened, I think, also because of the Trump win, because Trump went against a lot of the orthodoxy of the Republican party.
And so I think, you know, whatever happens with this election, I think there is a real sea change that has happened here and the Walz pick demonstrates that actually getting things done, doing things for people and not just serving corporate donors and whoever else is propping up your campaign. That stuff is really popular and really politically potent.
Listen to Scott Harris’ in-depth interview with Branko Marcetic (27:37) and see more articles and opinion pieces in the Related Links section of this page.
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