May I Have This Walz?

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has been selected as Kamala Harris' running mate.

I thought all of the major names floating for VP would have been fine picks. But now that Walz has gotten the official nod, I can say that I'm really enthusiastic about him joining the ticket. 

What do I like about him? To begin, he's got the support of the base while not doesn't seeming to have any particular clique or bloc of voters with a beef against him. In terms of immediate reaction and instinctual enthusiasm, he's all upside. He's already proven himself an effective messenger against Trump and Vance, which is really a VP candidate's number one job. His presentation is a best-of-all-worlds: moderate affect, but progressive results. What's not to like?

As a member of congress representing a swing district, he had a relatively moderate voting record. But his moderation never took the form of hippie-punching for its own sake. In contrast to a Sinema or Manchin type, he wasn't randomly looking to sabotage progressive priorities just so he could grandstand about how he's constraining the left. He just wasn't interested in putting on a show of being a bold maverick bucking the party.

That approach really has come through in his tenure as Minnesota Governor, where he's delivered a long list of progressive priorities that have made Minnesota a model for other states to follow. Some people were surprised at Walz's leadership, again taking cues from his moderate reputation. But Walz's progressivism is really a lot like his moderation -- it wasn't part of some big performance about taking on The Democratic Establishment or being leftier-than-thou, it was just the honest, grinding work of making progress when you can. And it turns out that when you have that orientation, you really can accomplish a lot that makes a lot of people's lives better.

In short, Walz is a pragmatist in the best possible sense: someone who concentrates on getting things done. And I've realized that I lot of what I like about Walz is what I like about Joe Biden. Sure, there's the folksy demeanor and the "moderate" reputation, and the underlying warmth and human decency. But fundamentally, Walz seems like someone who is in politics to actually make things happen -- not to talk about them, not to ride the talk show circuit and get a big book contract, and not to impotently fulminate about how the system makes any real change impossible. And when he's put in a position to make positive change, he's taken it. Just as Joe Biden surprised a lot of people with the muscularity of his domestic agenda (coming from a "moderate"), so too did Tim Walz as Governor of Minnesota. In both cases, the surprise was a product of mistaking an affect and a pragmatic orientation for antipathy to progressivism. And in both cases, the results speak for themselves. I have absolutely zero qualms about carrying that tradition forward.

So I'm delighted to have this Walz on the Democratic ticket. To victory in November!