Hello everyone!
I hope everyone's having a meaty, musky Tuesday.
Kamala Harris' best VP pick would have been Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro. He's moderate -- um, by modern Democrat Party standards, leastaways -- and he's the governor of the tipping point state in this election. (A "tipping point" state is the state that's in the middle of the battleground states, politically -- it's where the election literally tips one way or the other.)
He was the pick that scared me the most. Picking him would suggest that Kamala Harris is making a play for the middle.
There was, of course, just one small problem with Shapiro:
He's a Jew, and the antisemitic left hates Jews.
Don't take my word for it -- here's Democrat Florida Representative Jared Moskowitz:
"Progressives" posted many videos shrieking about the leak that claimed that Harris had indeed chosen Shapiro, hoping that if they were "loud enough," as one leftwing female black TikTokfluencer said, they could drive him off the ticket like the drove "Joe Biden out."
It's all about "support for Israel," don't you know. Wink.
Well, either she never had any real thought of picking Shapiro, or the antisemitic pro-Hamas activist base was indeed "loud enough" to force her to change plans.
Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party's presidential nominee, on Tuesday named Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate as she faces off against former President Trump in the 2024 election, Fox News Digital has confirmed.
The naming of the 60-year-old Walz was not a shocker, as his name was instantly thought to be in contention in the two weeks since Harris succeeded President Biden as the party's standard-bearer.
Walz, a former congressman, is in his second term as governor of Minnesota, a state that Democrats have reliably won in presidential elections for decades but that the Trump campaign has aimed at flipping this cycle.
"I am proud to announce that I've asked @Tim_Walz to be my running mate," Harris officially announced on X Tuesday. "As a governor, a coach, a teacher, and a veteran, he's delivered for working families like his."
She added: "It's great to have him on the team. Now let's get to work."
Look at this list of "accomplishments:"
Walz, the chair of the Democratic Governors Association, may also help Harris when it comes to bringing in campaign cash, as he has helped steer the DGA to record-breaking fundraising this year.
The governor will also be able to showcase a slew of progressive policy victories in Minnesota, including protecting abortion rights, legalizing recreational marijuana and restricting gun access to curb shootings.
Raised in rural Nebraska, Walz enlisted in the Army National Guard in 1981, soon after graduating from high school.
Walz returned to Nebraska to attend Chadron State College, where he graduated in 1989 with a degree in social science education.
He taught English and American History in China for one year through a program at Harvard University before being hired in 1990 as a high school teacher and football and basketball coach in Nebraska. Six years later, he moved to Mankato, Minnesota, to teach geography at Mankato West High.
BTW, expect him to make a big deal out of his "war record." During the Iraq War, he served in... Italy. Whoa, that's what I call hazard duty.
I know: "They also serve who only stand and wait." Agreed! I just don't want to hear that he's an "Iraq War (era) veteran. No more DaNang Dicks.
Ed Driscoll rounds up reactions from the right. He quotes Minnesotan (I think) John Hinderaker:
As an American, I am horrified at Walz's selection. He is small-minded, mean-spirited man. In one way, he will fit in with the Harris ticket: he ran a basement campaign for re-election in 2022, refusing to show up for debates with Republican Scott Jensen after the first one went badly. So Jensen was left debating an empty chair.
Walz's character defects are considerable, but let's leave it at this: he was largely responsible for the George Floyd riots that devastated Minneapolis and other cities, because he dithered for days rather than calling out the National Guard. By his own admission, he held off out of sympathy for the rioters' cause.
Kyle Shideler says this is a bold strategy, Cotton, we'll have to see how it works out for them:
Kyle Shideler
@ShidelerK
So Kamala picked the governor who failed to handle the rioters in the same state where she supported the rioter's bail fund?
Seems like a choice.
ZitoSalena
@ZitoSalena
...2 things are true. 1st picking @GovernorShapiro would've been about expanding the coalition [while] picking Walz is about a base election.
@GovTimWalz is deep blue progressive, often called a prairie progressive.
2nd this was Pelosi's pick & she has been at the controls all along.
As for Josh Shapiro: He was so gutless, heartless, and thirsty for power he scrubbed his record of any unacceptable support for Israel:
Christian
@ChristianCamara
Disgraceful: Shapiro scrubbed his Wikipedia page of his @IDF service and is distancing himself from his pro-@Israel past to earn the Harris VP nod.
Ron Coleman
@RonColeman
Poor @JoshShapiroPA stitched his foreskin back on for nothing
Scumbag cuck and self-hating antisemite prick.
Pro-Trump activists are going to make the very-pro-arson-and-racial-insurrection Tim Walz pay for his weidness: