{"id":6958,"date":"2024-08-08T12:40:45","date_gmt":"2024-08-08T04:40:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?p=6958"},"modified":"2024-08-08T12:40:47","modified_gmt":"2024-08-08T04:40:47","slug":"in-walz-harris-sees-a-battleground-strategy-dressed-in-carhartt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?p=6958","title":{"rendered":"In Walz, Harris Sees a Battleground Strategy Dressed in Carhartt"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
KENT NISHIMURA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In selecting Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota as her running mate, Vice President Kamala Harris has picked a partner who is many things she is not: a product of small-town America. A union member known to campaign in a T-shirt and camo hat. A white guy who exudes Midwestern dad energy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And, perhaps most important, a politician who has had to rely on the support of independent, or even Republican, voters to win elections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their pairing is somewhat predictable; a cardinal rule of vice-presidential selection is to construct the ticket with political balance in mind. But it is also a statement about what many Democrats believe is one of Ms. Harris\u2019s key vulnerabilities: that she is perceived as too liberal, putting even the small slice of rural, working-class and moderate voters that she needs across Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan out of her reach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ms. Harris, a California Democrat, has never won an election as a solo candidate outside the liberal bastion of California, where races often hinge not on winning swing voters but on successfully navigating intraparty fights. That has left her with limited experience acquiring a political skill Mr. Walz honed over his nearly two decades in politics: talking to conservatives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The great dream of Ms. Harris\u2019s pick is that Mr. Walz\u2019s brand of affable cultural politics can help broaden her appeal and win back some of the voters who have been fleeing the party for years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In other words, Democrats hope that \u201cBrat summer,\u201d the lime green, pop-culture meme for Ms. Harris\u2019s campaign, can translate into the kind of brat summer that evokes a staple of Midwest barbecues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is a man who is as comfortable walking into Farm Fest in southern Minnesota and talking to corn and soybean growers as he is walking into a Black church in north Minneapolis,\u201d said Senator Tina Smith, the Minnesota Democrat. \u201cHe is a person who just knows how to sit down and listen and connect with people.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Republicans are not going to let Mr. Walz\u2019s casual style and folksy, flat Midwestern vowels alone pass for moderate views. \u201cThis isn\u2019t the Democratic Party of your parents or grandparents,\u201d said Matt Brooks, the chairman of the Republican Jewish Coalition. And Republicans pulled out pieces of Mr. Walz\u2019s liberal record in Minnesota \u2014 such as tampons in school bathrooms and voting rights for felons \u2014 to try to underscore the point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Democratic strategy is based far more on the identity politics of race, gender and cultural affiliation than on any policy calculations. Mr. Walz does not bring the clear electoral benefits of other contenders \u2014 like Josh Shapiro, the popular governor of Pennsylvania, or Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona \u2014 who might have more directly helped Ms. Harris in key swing states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
ANDREA ELLEN REED FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

And he shares much of Ms. Harris\u2019s liberal agenda, championing issues like protecting abortion rights, restricting guns and expanding benefits like paid family leave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Mr. Walz, 60, presents as a cultural moderate: He is a gun owner who hunts turkeys and pheasants, and an Army veteran from rural northwest Nebraska. His first visit to San Francisco occurred last week<\/a>, when he traveled to the city for some political meetings. And he is the first Democratic vice-presidential pick in more than a half-century who did not attend law school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSometimes you see politicians who put on a Carhartt T-shirt in order to try to show rural America that they care about them,\u201d said Jane Kleeb, the chair of the Nebraska Democratic Party. \u201cBut Walz doesn\u2019t have to do that. He has plenty of Carhartt in his closet, and plaid and everything else.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Large swaths of white, rural voters \u2014 the demographic group he fits most neatly into \u2014 are unlikely to break their yearslong support of former President Donald J. Trump because Mr. Walz is on the ticket. But Democrats hope Mr. Walz can curb some of those expected losses, expand where they can compete and reassure more moderate Democrats who may have concerns about Ms. Harris.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re living in the real world here,\u201d said Ms. Smith. \u201cWe might not win rural communities, but we win the small towns in those rural communities and our margin of loss is smaller.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is all a very different brand of Democratic politics than was practiced by Ms. Harris in California \u2014 and nationally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She won her last solo election \u2014 the fight for her Senate seat in 2016 \u2014 by defeating another Democrat. In 2019, Ms. Harris began a presidential campaign in which she spent months talking to Democrats alone, largely courting the progressive wing of the party in a crowded primary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a vice-presidential candidate, it was her running mate, Joseph R. Biden Jr., who made it his mission to make the case to the white working-class and moderates in the Midwest, while she was often dispatched to increase his support among the younger and more diverse parts of the Democratic coalition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Walz rose to political power through the Democratic Farmer-Labor Party, a state operation with a tradition of rural, populist politics that once held sway across the Midwest but has largely evaporated beyond his home state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a dozen years, he represented a rural, conservative district in southern Minnesota and was considered a moderate in Congress, even\u00a0earning an A rating from the National Rifle Association<\/a>. Other Democrats from rural areas lost their re-election races, but Mr. Walz held on to his seat, even as Mr. Trump won his district by a double-digit margin in 2016. Two years later, he retired to run for governor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, it was liberal activists, commentators and donors who emerged as the strongest champions of Mr. Walz during the whirlwind vetting process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
JEFF WHEELER\/STAR TRIBUNE, VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont endorsed him for vice president, as did a series of labor unions and progressive advocacy organizations. Some of the most liberal donors pushed his bid to campaign officials and people close to Ms. Harris.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those affiliations might help Republicans as they rush to cast Mr. Walz as \u201cwoke.\u201d On Tuesday, they targeted his response to the protests<\/a>, looting, vandalism and arson that engulfed Minneapolis after the murder of George Floyd by a police officer. Critics say he responded too late to a request from the city\u2019s mayor to deploy the National Guard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey make an interesting tag team because, of course, Tim Walz allowed rioters to burn down Minneapolis in the summer of 2020, and the few who got caught, Kamala Harris helped bail them out of jail,\u201d Republicans\u2019 vice-presidential nominee, Senator JD Vance of Ohio, told reporters traveling on his campaign plane on Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Vance was also chosen in part because of his working-class roots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Democrats believe Mr. Walz is enough of a skilled politician that he can defray such attacks and keep the focus on Mr. Trump. His ability to do that was the other major factor that played into his selection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Walz rocketed to the top of the vice-presidential list after a series of news media appearances, where he coined a plain-spoken way of describing Mr. Trump and his Republican allies as \u201cweird.\u201d It is a message he described as a \u201cpolitics of joy\u201d that has long been missing from the party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is the emperor wearing no clothes,\u201d he said in an interview\u00a0on CNN last month<\/a>. \u201cThis is about making sure you take away this perceived power he has.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, he quickly added, \u201cI want to be very clear, I\u2019m not speaking about the people at his rallies. Those are my relatives.\u201d He went on: \u201cThese are my neighbors. These are good people.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In selecting Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota as her running mate, Vice President Kamala Harris has picked a partner who is many things she is not: a product of small-town America. A union member known to campaign in a T-shirt and camo hat. A white guy who exudes Midwestern dad energy. And, perhaps most important, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":6959,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[2534,2612,43],"class_list":["post-6958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-usa","tag-harris","tag-walz","tag-who"],"yoast_head":"\nIn Walz, Harris Sees a Battleground Strategy Dressed in Carhartt - LISTEN WORLD<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?p=6958\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"In Walz, Harris Sees a Battleground Strategy Dressed in Carhartt - LISTEN WORLD\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In selecting Gov. 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