Union leaders praise the decision // He has said that deporting all undocumented immigrants is unfeasible // His family lived on welfare programs
▲ Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris with vice presidential hopeful Tim Walz in Philadelphia yesterday.Afp Photo
David Brooks and Jim Cason
Correspondents
The newspaper La Jornada
Wednesday, August 7, 2024, p. 24
New York and Washington. Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris has selected Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate in what is seen here as part of an effort to consolidate support for Democrats among voters in the Midwest, including rural populations, who will be key to determining the national contest in November.
In choosing Walz, Harris rejected the advice of several political experts in Washington who preferred the Pennsylvania governor, who is a good speaker but a fierce Zionist, or a senator from Arizona who could focus on immigration. Progressive lawmakers and leaders of several of the country’s major unions praised the decision.
Harris, in an Instagram post announcing her decision, noted that the governor grew up in a town of 400 people in Nebraska, his family relied on welfare programs after his father died, and that he joined the National Guard at age 17. Walz later became a public high school teacher, a football coach, and an adviser to the first gay and straight student group. He was then elected four times to the U.S. House of Representatives in a district that was also won by Donald Trump in 2016, and is currently serving his second term as governor.
He shines and sheds light on the promising future we can all build together.Harris said yesterday when announcing her decision. And with their experience, we will be ready from day one.he added, trying to contrast him with his opponent’s vice presidential candidate Donald Trump.
Harris explained that she selected him both for his effective performance in achieving the approval of measures such as the codification into law of the right to abortion, tax credits for families and the right to paid days for employees with family obligations, among others, as well as for his style of political rhetoric.
His official biography also highlights that he is a hunter who was supported by the National Rifle Association (NRA) until, as governor, he denounced legal access to automatic weapons after the massacre at a high school in Parkland, Florida, in 2017.
But his way of characterizing Republican candidate Donald Trump as weird raised his political profile in this election cycle. In interviews, Walz has said of Trump: “Listen to that guy. He talks about Hannibal Lectergiving electric shocks to sharks and almost any crazy thing he can think of. We give him too much credit… Has anyone seen him laugh? All of that seems very strange to me.”
The governor shares the Democratic message that Trump and his running mate JD Vance are a threat to the country’s future, but insists his party needs to do more than just repeat that. If we don’t offer something that is an alternative and that really works for people (the Republicans’ message) is much easier to expressusing the anti-immigrant message of his opponents, he explained in an interview with journalist Ezra Klein.
Walz, like nearly all politicians from both parties today, has said that better control of the southern border is needed, but he scoffs at what Republicans are offering. Trump He talks about this wall, and I always say: let me know how high it will be. If it’s 25 feet (7.62 meters), then I’ll invest in the 30-foot (9.14 meters) high ladder factory.he said in a recent interview with CNN.
The country needs immigrants
Walz endorses President Joe Biden and Harris’ proposals for border control, but at the same time has dared to point out that the United States needs immigrants, “especially in a state like Minnesota, where we are aging. The same thing is happening in Japan… in Finland… in South Korea. We are going to have to think about what that entails,” he said in his interview with Klein.
But the now vice presidential candidate will have as his main task to highlight the failures and shortcomings of Trump and Vance. Regarding migration, he commented, With Vance, what is he offering? Get everyone out, then they’re going to deport everyone.saying that’s not feasible. He said a real solution is to address the reasons – be it climate change or political instability, among others – why people are leaving their countries to come to the United States, and to acknowledge that the immigration system is broken, rather than demonizing migrants.
These pro-immigrant positions are not new. As governor, Walz enacted laws that now grant driver’s licenses to all residents of his state regardless of immigration status, and supported the declaration of his state as a sanctuary.
His experience in international politics is limited. He advocated sending arms to Ukraine. He lived in China for a year working as a teacher, where he learned Mandarin. As a legislator, he supported a Congressional resolution condemning the coup d’état in Honduras. He opposed the new measures imposed by then-President Trump against Cuba, stating on Twitter that Limiting relations with the island harms the interests of Minnesota farmers and ranchers.
The Trump-Vance campaign immediately called Walz a radical leftistwho will open our borders to the worst criminals and of San Francisco style liberal.
But that label won’t be so easy to apply, and not just because Walz has visited San Francisco only once, while his opponent Vance lived there for four years working as a speculative financier, but because his political record doesn’t lend itself to such characterizations. “His record in Congress was much less progressive than the public narrative indicates. He voted with Republicans frequently and was one of the few Democrats who voted to hold Eric Holder (Barack Obama’s attorney general) in contempt of Congress over the scandal,” he said. Fast and Furious”, says reporter Jake Sherman of Punchbowl news, in X.
But Walz is not afraid of the label either. progressive. Never shy away from our progressive valueshe declared in a mass call for Zoom organized by White Dudes for Kamala, concluding that One person’s socialism is another’s good neighborliness.
Walz doesn’t shy away from his love of rock & roll, either. When Bruce Springsteen played a concert in his state in March of last year, the governor declared, “In welcoming him to The boss In Minnesota, where thousands are preparing to witness a living legend in action, I am proud to proclaim that today is Bruce Springsteen Day in Minnesota.”