August 7, 2024
***Opinion***
With VP Kamala Harris‘ choice for Vice Presidential candidate of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz yesterday, the Democratic Party’s 2024 Presidential ticket is complete. In the two weeks since President Biden announced that he wouldn’t run for re-election and endorsed Harris, pundits and social media influencers have batted around a short list of potential running mates for her. One of the names belonged to Walz, but there were plausible cases made for all of them.
Walz, in the couple of campaign appearances he’s made since becoming the VP candidate, has come across as an affable and energetic addition to the ticket. A former teacher and High School football coach, he seems to have a knack for motivational speaking. That happens to be exactly what the Party needed in this abbreviated campaign matchup of Harris v Trump. In less than 3 months Americans will choose the next President. In the meantime Harris and Walz are campaigning through the Upper Midwest, a critically important set of states they must win in November to defeat Trump and a very different “Green Bay Sweep” than Team Trump attempted on January 6, 2021.
The Walz selection, and Biden’s withdrawal, has left the Trump campaign off balance. The campaign was already running against “Sleepy Joe Biden,” a “sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory,” in the words of Special Counsel Robert Hur. The poor memory quote was framed as part of a larger “too old” narrative that seized upon every stutter, mispronunciation, or stiff-legged step by Biden as further proof that he was unfit to serve due to his advanced age. With Trump, 78, now facing off against Harris, 59, he’s the one who can be hit with the “too old” charge. Walz is 60.
Even though they’re not headlining the fact that Harris, if she wins, will be America’s first female President, it’s an undeniable element in this race. The United States lags badly in the category of electing a woman to lead. Hillary Clinton leaned into it by talking about the highest, hardest glass ceiling and sloganeering “I’m with Her.” Harris doesn’t need to point out the obvious because as the first female elected Vice President she’s already implicitly broken through the glass ceiling. The Vice President is literally a heartbeat away from America’s highest office, something voters presumably considered when electing Biden who was 78 as his term began.
Another campaign theme is cop versus criminal. Harris wasted no time in reminding voters that her experience as a prosecutor means she knows Trump’s type. She declared she’s taken on “perpetrators of all kinds” a pointed reference to Trump’s felony convictions and pending criminal charges. “Predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain. So, hear me when I say I know Donald Trump’s type.”
So far the Trump campaign has not divined a catchy moniker like “Crooked Hillary” or “Lyin’ Ted Cruz” for Harris, and mocking her name and ancestry has either fallen flat at best, or backfired altogether. Calling her “Kamabla” is just…weird. And “weird” happens to be the adjective the Harris Walz campaign has smeared Trump’s with, to very good effect. Now, every weird thing Trump or Vance says will push their “weird” brand even higher.
Yesterday, a seemingly desperate and possibly delusional Trump posted the following screed online:
“What are the chances that Crooked Joe Biden, the WORST President in the history of the U.S., whose Presidency was Unconstitutionally STOLEN from him by Kamabla, Barrack HUSSEIN Obama, Crazy Nancy Pelosi, Shifty Adam Schiff, Cryin’ Chuck Schumer, and others on the Lunatic Left, CRASHES the Democrat National Convention and tries to take back the Nomination, beginning with challenging me to another DEBATE. He feels that he made a historically tragic mistake by handing over the U.S. Presidency, a COUP, to the people in the World he most hates, and he wants it back, NOW!!!”
Weird, right?
Photo: TV screencap