Despite his running mate’s ultra-liberal record, most of the media is jumping on the Walz-wagon

When Kamala Harris picked Tim Walz, the largely unknown governor of Minnesota, there was an unmistakable pattern in the coverage.

Not to mention an element of surprise, since everyone thought Josh Shapiro was the odds-on favorite given the importance of the governor’s home state of Pennsylvania.

For the journalists and commentators who cheered Walz as a running mate, which is most of the media, they praised his character. A former football coach, a pheasant hunter, the persona of rural America, unassuming, funny, a guy who had to warn the campaign that he never read a speech off a teleprompter.

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In fact, Harris presented Walz as a husband, father, teacher and avatar of old-fashioned values ​​and continued to call him a coach.

For those who criticized the election, they attacked him on the issues, the very liberal policies he implemented in Minnesota. And that allows the Trump campaign to tout the new ticket as the most left-wing in American history.

Politics, of course, is as much about politics as it is about personality, and the latter could do well. Just consider the fierce devotion MAGA voters have for Trump.

(KAMIL KRZACZYNSKI/AFP via Getty Images/File)

But I think Harris might have had a blind spot for how liberal her new partner is. Instead of nodding to the center with a more moderate choice, she doubled down on someone even further to the left than her.

If the VP loses Pennsylvania, and with the election, there will be a lot of suspicion about Shapiro’s bypass. Not that it could “deliver” a state, but even 10,000 votes could have made a difference.

But now a lot of people are getting on board the Walz bandwagon.

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CNN senior White House correspondent MJ Lee said in Walz “we have somebody who kind of embodies the proud, resilient, hard-working patriotic middle of the country.”

MSNBC’s Jonathan Lemire: “That’s how they billed him. He’s got that Midwestern folksy charm. I think it’s fair to spend time on his biography. It’s very impressive.”

Vanity Fair’s Molly Jong-Fast on the same network: “He’s ice fishing, he’s a hunter. He’s carving in butter… It really is a rural American success story.”

Walz has a great personal story, including 24 years in the National Guard. Both he and Harris gave rousing speeches at their start in Philadelphia.

But critics see it very differently.

Media pundits took to social media with thoughts on Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)

Federalist editor-in-chief Mollie Hemingway: “Tim Walz really isn’t known for being anything other than a pretty tough progressive leftist.”

FOX’s Jesse Watters: “This guy isn’t Minnesota Nice, he’s Minnesota Nuts… Sanctuary cities. Driving license for illegals. Sanctuary cities for child gender reassignment”.

A dissenting voice on CNN was conservative Scott Jennings, who said, “It’s normal to let the largest city in your state burn while you’re governor for four days, destroying thousands of businesses, hundreds of millions of dollars in damage materials? while you do nothing?”

This is a reference to the riots in Minneapolis after George Floyd was killed and investigators found that Walz mishandled the violence by waiting days to call the National Guard.

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Walz has recently gained some cred with Kamala folks in his TV hits, labeling the opposition “weird,” which has become a signature line for Dems.

Trump, for his part, said of Harris and Walz on “Fox & Friends” yesterday: “No one knew how radical on the left she was. But he’s a smarter version of her, if you want to know the truth.”

And he posted: “What are the odds that Crooked Joe Biden, the WORST PRESIDENT in US history, whose presidency was unconstitutionally STOLEN by Kamabla, Barrack HUSSEIN Obama, Crazy Nancy Pelosi, Shifty Adam Schiff, Cryin’ Chuck Schumer, and others on the Crazy Left are RUNNING the Democratic National Convention and trying to reclaim the nomination…”

There is no doubt that a concerted campaign by the pro-Hamas wing of the Democratic Party helped push Shapiro out of the running. His pro-Israel stance isn’t really that different from many others in the party, but he is, of course, Jewish.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro is seen at the Freedom Celebration Ceremony during Wawa Welcome America on July 4, 2023, in Philadelphia. (Gilbert Carrasquillo/GC Images)

However, there are other factors as well. According to reports in Politico and elsewhere, Harris’ Sunday interview with Shapiro didn’t go so well, and he’s gotten the word out that he’s having a hard time deciding whether to leave the governorship. Shapiro also irked the campaign with too many questions about how much authority he would have.

Harris, who had her own strains with Joe Biden, felt much more comfortable with Walz; said he would be happy to play a supporting role and has no ambitions beyond being VP.

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JD Vance, who held a news conference in Wisconsin yesterday, told reporters that Harris “should be ashamed of herself” for not doing an interview. On Tuesday, the vice president spoke briefly to reporters off the record, her standard form of communication.

Walz has done many interviews, including on Fox. Will he be allowed to continue doing such sessions with journalists? If she does, she will have to answer a lot of questions about why her past positions suddenly changed and why she avoids the press — a complaint consistently leveled against Biden but for which journalists have given her a lot of credit. share a pass to Harris.