Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

It could be worse. Vance could have said “post-menopausal sows.” Waiting for that audiotape to surface.

The willow is too close to the house.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Happy indictment week to all who celebrate!

I might just take the rest of the day off and do even more nothing than usual.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.

T R E 4 5 O N

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

“They not like us!” (that’s for sure!)

I wonder if trump will be tried as an adult.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

Dear Washington Post, you are the darkness now.

Compromise? There is no middle ground between a firefighter and an arsonist.

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

You cannot shame the shameless.

The new republican ‘Pastor’ of the House is an odious authoritarian little creep.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

I desperately hope that, yet again, I am wrong.

You are here: Home / John Cole Presents "This Fucking Old House" / It’s Walz!!!!!

It’s Walz!!!!!

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I am so excited:

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who CNN has reported is Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate pick, was a “staff favorite,” one source at Harris’ Wilmington, Delaware campaign headquarters said.

“If it’s him, we’re stoked. We like him,” the source said.

Staffers have been excitedly standing by for the vice presidential announcement, sources say, including the small circle of staffers preparing for the Walz rollout.

There was little sleep last night, the staffer said, as the team awaited the news – capping a whirlwind 16-day period since President Joe Biden’s team became Harris’ campaign.

I have not been this excited since Obama/Biden. WE CAN HAVE NICE THINGS.

ON an identity politics level I look at Walz and I see myself and this is the first time I have EVER said that about any vp or presidential nominee. I bet he has hearing loss from the army and says things like “sweet jesus my knees” when he stands up

Reader Interactions

80Comments

  1. 1.

    hrprogressive

    HELL YEAH LETS GO.

    TELL IT LIKE IT IS, GOVERNOR.

    HARRIS/WALZ TO SAVE THE FKN COUNTRY

  2. 2.

    Eolirin

    Gotta get Tester over the line too. We need that trifecta.

    If we can pull this off, we’re gonna get a ton done in her first two years. But this is going to be hard and we all need to buckle down.

  4. 4.

    Paul W.

    My wife, sister and neighbor are so super pumped we’re just sending excited text messages back and forth.

    We said “Are the Democrats finally becoming a party!?”, I’ve never felt like we could all get on the same page and push together since (as John said) Obama 08 and now here we are and I am so excited! We’ve donated, and are organizing post carding events for swing states. Let’s go!

  6. 6.

    K-Mo

    He doesn’t have any negatives as far as I can tell, even if he doesn’t have an obvious constituency add-on.

    A genuine person to run against the fakers on the other side.

  7. 7.

    Ishiyama

    When he signed Minnesota’s Marijuana Legalization bill, Governor Walz thanked my older brother, by name, for helping organize the political parties that kept the pressure on for legalization. A lifetime of unpaid political work, finally paid off.

  10. 10.

    Steve LaBonne

    Choosing a running mate is a presidential candidate’s first big test. She aced it.

  11. 11.

    Elizabelle

    Great choice.  He is authentic, teaching and military background, excels at retail politics, not weird.

    Happy and relieved with this choice.  Maybe Shapiro will be considered for AG, assuming he would leave the governorship for a Cabinet appointment.

    We can win this.

  14. 14.

    Scout211

    @Ishiyama: When he signed Minnesota’s Marijuana Legalization bill, Governor Walz thanked my older brother, by name

    Oh wow.  That is awesome!

  16. 16.

    bbleh

    Dunno what happened to earlier post, but as noted there, I’m RILLY happy she went with Walz for all sorts of reasons, and hoo boy are the knives gonna be out at the Vichy Times now!

    Now back to work!  There’s an election to win!  (Several, actually.

    @K-Mo: concur re lack of negatives, which is in line with a VP mostly can’t help but they CAN hurt (see, eg, Couchhumper, J.D.).  And Walz’s background and personality really complement Harris’s in many ways.  AND he’s mediagenic as hell.  (And as to constituency, if we aren’t gonna win PA without Shapiro, we’re not gonna win the election.)

  17. 17.

    Mr. Mack

    Happy with the pick.  DUI will come out from the Right, but I believe it was in 95 and maybe makes him more relatable?

  18. 18.

    206inKY

    YAY!!!! This is an unstoppable ticket.

    Also she’s channeling gruff-but-heart-of-gold-middle-aged-dude-who-smells-bullshit-from-a-mile-away energy, valuable to both elections and top 10,000 blogmastering.

  20. 20.

    Scout211

    Reposted from the first “It’s Walz” thread downstairs:

    Blog favorite! I am super sure that the Harris team was checking the balloon-juice comment section to see who was our favorite.  We put Walz over the top!

    Take a bow jackals. 😉

  24. 24.

    Itinerantpedant

    Well America is now gonna have to take its hands out of its damn pockets, get that cover off inside, and there will be NO WALKING on the Whitehouse Lawn, have you lost your fucking mind?

  25. 25.

    rk

    Who would have thought it? Last month everything seemed to be against us. Nothing touched Trump, not even a bullet. My only thought was “can it become any worse, this is a nightmare”. Then things took an almost magical turn. If this were a book, I’d fling it against the wall because the writer took the easy way out with a beautiful dynamic woman coming to the rescue of a despairing populace (nothing in the book pointed towards the change). Now we get a trusty sidekick as well. Truth is stranger than fiction.

  26. 26.

    Matt McIrvin

    @K-Mo: He doesn’t look youthful. But Harris herself does, even though they’re really about the same age, so maybe that’s an aesthetic ticket balancer.

    Walz is a candidate that a lot of progressives seemed to like, but he’s not any of the ones that the people who stare at electoral-vote maps and ponder strategy wanted. I’m happy with him.

  30. 30.

    sixthdoctor

    Next to Jim Ross yelling out BAH GAWD THAT’S MAYOR PETE’S MUSIC I’m most excited for this pick. And I think Mayor Pete will be a great Secretary of State in the Harris admin should she win.

    Now let’s humiliate these sacks of fetid Velveeta…

  31. 31.

    jonas

    @Eolirin: Yep. Tester in Montana, Brown in Ohio, Rosen in NV and Gallego in AZ are the four do-or-die Senate races, esp. since we’re certain to lose Manchin’s seat in WV. I think Gallego and Rosen are going to be ok — they’re looking pretty good in recent polling and seem to have gotten a boost from Harris taking over. Tester and Brown are going to be nail-biters, though, esp. Tester.

  32. 32.

    Mousebumples

    @Mr. Mack: he also quit drinking after that. It feels like something that would be relatable to a lot of Midwestern people, imo.

  37. 37.

    Scout211

    (NBC)    In a fundraising email to supporters, the Trump campaign slammed Walz in fiery terms, claiming the Minnesota governor would “unleash hell on Earth” if the Democratic ticket wins this fall.

    The email went on to say: “Even worse than Dangerously Liberal and Crooked Kamala Harris — HE’S THAT BAD.”

    Ha ha ha ha! Nice try weird people.

  38. 38.

    206inKY

    @Eolirin: 100%! My donation money is going toward Tester and local KY races, since I can rest easy that the spigot will stay open for the DREAM TEAM of Harris and Walz. Fired up and ready to go!

  39. 39.

    Eolirin

    @jonas: Not that I trust the polling that much but Brown seems to be up there by a decent enough amount that I’m not too worried.

    Tester is down though. We need a polling miss to save him. He’s down by a small enough amount that GOTV could be definitive too, but his race is going to be the hardest fight this cycle.

  41. 41.

    TaMara

    I am so excited:

    Same! And listening the pundits over the past 24 hours being so butthurt that it might be him and now him is just sweet music to me. They see to think that “folksy” and everyman qualities mean he can’t be extremely qualified, which he is.

  42. 42.

    bbleh

    @Scout211: That really looks like something the Felon himself would write, complete with schoolyard insults and weird capitalization.  (Of course by now they probably have an AI that can do it, cuz it ain’t that hard.)

  43. 43.

    MazeDancer

    Tim Walz will just steam roll the silly MSM.

    People will love him. He is so real. No Ivy League. Not a lawyer.

    A teacher, ffs. Real military. Hunter. Ice fisherman. Girl Dad.

    Every Suburban Woman and Senior Dad will love him.

    The opposite of Scary Liberal, even though he is one.

    If it had been one of the others, would be cheering him.

    But from the moment he said “weird” was impressed Tim.

  45. 45.

    Comrade Nimrod Humperdink

    A public school teacher as VP.  MAN.  All 140 pounds of me is ready to push a blocking sled all over the yard right now

  46. 46.

    Elizabelle

    @jonas:  Maybe Walz will remind voters how decent Sherrod Brown truly is.  It’s OK to vote for the Democrat.  (For Ohio:  in extreme circumstances.)

  47. 47.

    M31

    I think Walz’s experience in the military and as a high school teacher and coach is going to come in handy soon, as journalists ask dumbass GOP-tilted gotcha questions. He’ll just wait patiently then rip them a new one.

    Vance is heading to the fainting couch as we speak.

    (eww)

  49. 49.

    K-Mo

    @Matt McIrvin: LOL guilty as charged!  One thing I keep reading there and elsewhere, though, is that avoiding negatives is paramount.  Walz is great in that respect- they are going to have a hard time ginning up outrage about him from either side.

    At the end of the day it’s her choice and I trust it.  As WG said on an earlier thread, sometimes you take the person you most want to work with when the chips are down.

  50. 50.

    jonas

    @Scout211:  claiming the Minnesota governor would “unleash hell on Earth” if the Democratic ticket wins this fall.

    Trump campaign: “The governor of Minnesota is, literally, Godzilla. No, don’t go look that up. Just trust us.”

  52. 52.

    sixthdoctor

    @TaMara: Tim Walz was freaking GREAT at the White Dudes call, as was Mayor Pete and pretty much everyone (dark horse favorite was Paul Scheer).

    I really didn’t hear too much from Shapiro so I couldn’t judge but I would’ve been fine with any non-Cheney/Romney pick, but I’ve gone from knowing little about Walz to being all-in in a matter of weeks…

  53. 53.

    RA

    He is a good man, a good human, which is something I have said about very few politicians. The only positive thing about the possibility of losing him as governor is that we have a fantastic lieutenant  governor to take his place! She will be the first Native American woman governor in the country. Win win for everyone!

  54. 54.

    Andrew Abshier

    He was the top of my list in a very deep field.   I’m very fired up about this ticket!

  55. 55.

    TF79

    Excellent news! Would have been satisfied by just about anybody that had been seriously considered, but I’m thrilled it’s Walz. That picture of the kids hugging him when he signed the free school lunch bill is just wonderful.

  56. 56.

    Andrew Abshier

    I have the beginnings of a campaign song, sung to the tune of the chorus from “Waltzing Matilda:”
    Walz and Kamala, Walz and Kamala,
    Who’ll vote a-Walz and Kamala with me?
    And we sang as we stuffed Trump and J.D. Vance in ignominy,
    Who’ll vote a-Walz and Kamala with me?

  58. 58.

    Ohio Mom

    Walz did have hearing loss as a result of serving and later had some sort of surgery to correct it.

    So many times in my life I voted for people I wasn’t crazy about, this time I am crazy about my choice. It’s a great feeling.

  59. 59.

    Jackie

    Posting on this thread and WG’s thread – hoping to catch BettyCracker’s attention:

    MSNBC correspondent Molly Jong-Fast took a moment to share some trivia about the Minnesota governor.

    “Walz hunts and ice fishes,” Jong-Fast wanted her readers to know. “Walz once carved a school bus out of butter.”

  61. 61.

    Elizabelle

    @Jackie: Maybe put it on AL’s at the top of the page?  Too many posts today.

    But I love hearing about the butter school bus.

  62. 62.

    RandomMonster

    My mom’s side of the family are all originally Minnesotans. She’s going to be thrilled.

  69. 69.

    B1naryS3rf

    I didn’t feel any kind of way on Walz until last weekend and the talk shows and YouTube scouring. He has the gift of gab, he counterbalances Harris beautifully. He can help run up margins down ballot maybe even in states where we’re probably losing the EC. I would’ve accepted Shapiro too and looked forward to his skill in Middle East affairs, but he would not necessarily have given us an advantage we already would probably have in PA and too much time would be spent on his negatives. I think we have a genuine shot at this thing – let’s put Convicted Felon, Rapist and Traitor Trump and Creep Vance away for good!

  70. 70.

    Jess

    YES!!!

    ON an identity politics level I look at Walz and I see myself and this is the first time I have EVER said that about any vp or presidential nominee. I bet he has hearing loss from the army and says things like “sweet jesus my knees” when he stands up

    This made me laugh so hard. It’s what I like about you both.

  72. 72.

    Sis

    I’m so happy! I wanted Walz, but I didn’t want to get my hopes up, and I told myself that whoever she picked would be fine.

  75. 75.

    Kenneth Fair

    @Matt McIrvin: I’m very happy about the choice of Walz. The “VP pick from state X can help deliver state X” argument has been outdated for decades now—modern presidential campaigns don’t work that way. Walz is a likeable guy and a really effective communicator. The contrast with Vance is going to be delicious.

    Moreover, Walz gets it—in the brief window when you have a legislative trifecta, you don’t waste time trying to get “bipartisan support” for your initiatives so you can please the Tip ‘n’ Ronnie crowd. You enact everything you can, all at once. You get it done.

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