After the announcement that Vice President Kamala Harris had picked Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate, one of my more moderate friends who had worked with me behind the scenes to try to get President Joe Biden to step aside sent me a meme of a sheep being pulled from a ditch by a farmer — the sheep starts running and leaping with joy — and then leaps right back into the same ditch.
As a moderate, truly, sometimes it feels this way with the Democratic Party. (And given former President Donald Trump’s pick of Sen. JD Vance, followed by his rant against Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, I imagine Republicans feel the same — but worse. If the stakes weren’t so high, it would be funny. Does no one want to actually win this game?)
Credit: Handout
Credit: Handout
So the Walz pick is probably not as bad as the sheep jumping back into the ditch, but it definitely raises the worry that Democrats are headed there. Unlike Sen. Mark Kelly from Arizona and Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania in particular, who were also vetted for the vice presidential slot, Walz doesn’t bring a swing state with him. Minnesota is pretty safely in the blue column.
Further, during the veepstakes discussions, Walz was typecast as the pick of the Democratic “base” voters. And the Democratic activists, at least those I saw on X, were fiercely against Shapiro, arguing he was too pro-Israel and he had supported school vouchers. But this is precisely why he was appealing to moderates who are more closely aligned with these positions and are looking for someone who can show some gumption in standing up to left-wing concerns. Harris either needs a validator like this or needs to do it herself.
As Harris herself acknowledged at her rally, she is the underdog in this fight — certainly in Georgia. I talk to a lot of “Kemp-Warnock” swing voters as well as others who are more in the Geoff Duncan camp of the Republican Party, and they are not sold at all on Harris — particularly the men. They were more comfortable with Biden, at least the 2020 version of Biden who could carry a debate, and they are now very quick to bring up the San Francisco liberal charges against Harris. Duncan’s courageous endorsement notwithstanding, Harris has a moderate man, and maybe woman, problem.
This was precisely the problem the vice presidential pick was supposed to help address. Maybe Walz can pull this off — he represented a rural congressional district and has a folksy demeanor — but I would need to see more. At this point, Harris herself is going to need to show that she can stand up to the Democratic base voters. Yes, she has gotten stronger on the border — a position she inherited from Biden — but she’s going to have to do more.
I have long observed that voters — and particularly independents and political moderates — respect a politician who is willing to show the courage to tell their base “no.” Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger significantly outperformed other parts of the statewide ticket in the general election in 2022, despite having exactly the same profile in terms of policies as other members of the ticket. The one distinguishing difference was that both upheld the 2020 election against extraordinary pressure brought to bear on them by Trump and by their parties.
I certainly admire their courage, and every circle in which I’m involved, outside of the hard-core Democratic circles, admires this courage as well. It’s also why many of us admire Duncan, a former Georgia lieutenant governor. It doesn’t mean everyone will go so far as to vote for them — the policy disagreements are too deep — but others in the center and certainly independents will. And, candidly, I even know moderate Democrats who voted for Raffensperger. His electoral performance appears to reflect this.
So here we are. The vice presidential pick was Harris’ chance to show independence and to help establish her more moderate credentials. She instead chose to pick someone who was anodyne to the base; OK then, Walz does no harm perhaps, but Harris now has made the challenge to break out harder. Can she define herself in a way that will win Georgia? With every ad labeling her as a San Francisco liberal, Republicans are scrambling to define her. The door to show she is her own person is closing fast.
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