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You are here: Home / Elections 2024 / New Dawn Open Thread: Tim Walz Is A Good Man

New Dawn Open Thread: Tim Walz Is A Good Man

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And choosing him as her Vice-Presidential candidate is another sign of Kamala Harris’ good instincts.

not gonna harp on this too much but walz is useful in that he allows guys to say yes you can watch college football and hit each other in the nuts as a joke and be stupid guys but also you can want free lunch for kids and free feminine hygiene products in bathrooms and sensible gun laws.

— not an art thief (@famousartthief.bsky.social) Aug 9, 2024 at 12:21 AM

giving guys permission to be liberals is the next great wall to break down and i think it’s actually pretty doable.

— not an art thief (@famousartthief.bsky.social) Aug 9, 2024 at 12:24 AM


Reader Interactions

94Comments

  2. 2.

    Baud

    If Walz wants to hit Vance in the nuts as a joke at the debate, we might win the white male vote.

  3. 3.

    SectionH

    Tim is great. Kamala is  just amazing. Both of them are YES!…. After she’d dropped out of the race in 2020, I still voted for her in the California primary. That’s how much I loved her even then. And Tim? What’s not to love about him?

    TY for recent DougJ. (I went to Mac, so yeah, I’m just slightly Minnesota adjacent…)

  5. 5.

    tokyocali (formerly tokyo ex-pat)

    @Baud: How can he be so bad at this? The newspapers should publish those documents on his vetting because the public has a right to know how inept the Trump campaign is. Hundreds of pages of opposition research and they still chose this guy? Like Walz said above, cancel this TV show in November.

  8. 8.

    David 🐝KHive🐝 Koch

    choosing him as her Vice-Presidential candidate is another sign of Kamala Harris’ good instincts.

    Especially when the media was doing a full court press for Shapiro.

    Nothing against Shapiro, he’s a popular and talented communicator from a key state (some even say keystone state), but someone with a lessor character would have gone along with the media pick to just to avoid their backlash.

  10. 10.

    Rusty

    It’s one of those really simple tests to see if someone is a decent human being, “do you support free lunch for school kids?”  If they don’t, you should really start to question their character.

  13. 13.

    WereBear

    @Jeffg166: Word is that he expressed a lack of such ambitions.

    Also, had they chosen Shapiro, the media would have turned on him.

    Now, we all experience the hidden power of Minnesota Nice. The whole North Woods/Upper Midwest thing I know well.

    I can do a three level Jell-O salad. This skill has never been called upon, but I am ready.

  14. 14.

    Suzanne

    “I feel like one of my roles in this now is to be the anti-Tommy Tuberville, to show that football coaches are not the dumbest people.”

    The football coach at my high school was also the driver’s ed teacher and he had a somewhat sexy picture of his daughter, who was a model, wearing a sweater, no pants, and a come-hither smile.

    Maybe it was Baud! this whole time.

  16. 16.

    Baud

    @Suzanne:

    I’ve always felt like the sexy daughter of a high school coach on the inside.

     

    @WereBear: Walz would be 68. So probably not, given what we went through with Hillary and now Biden.

  17. 17.

    rodwell

    I thought Walz would be the best governing partner for Harris.  He has executive experience plus time in the House, so he would be able to assist moving her agenda forward.  Additionally, being a sergeant would bring a different perspective to the National Security discussion.  His selection was excellent in getting the party to covalence around Harris (Governor and HOR).  I did not think he would be this good for the campaign.   Also, if Harris selected Sharpio to lock down PA I would have been happy with that selection.

  19. 19.

    divF

    @WereBear: I’m a great fan of Jane and Michael Stern’s books, including their Square Meals cookbook, which is a book of American comfort food recipes from the 20th century. One recipe that sticks in my mind is a Jello mold with Twinkies imbedded in it. You have to wait until the Jello is partially set so that the Twinkies settle below the surface, but not sink all the way to the bottom of the dish.

    IIRC correctly (it is 3 AM here and I’m too lazy to look for the book) a principal source for them are cookbooks put out by church groups and civic organizations in midwestern towns.

  23. 23.

    David 🐝KHive🐝 Koch

    The convention will serve as Harris and Walz last stop on a bus tour dubbed “on the Road to Chicago,” which will embark from Pittsburgh Sunday. On the way, the candidates and their spouses will stop to meet voters at volunteer canvass events and local retailers.

    Their campaign bus is really colorful (photo)

  24. 24.

    TBone

    @tokyocali (formerly tokyo ex-pat):

    @Baud: 

    Everything I’ve read about the “vetting” documents stated that it is merely a collection of publicly available information, meaning it’s all merely old news stories.  As in, the information has already been published.  That’s given as the reason the news outlets are not publishing.  Of course, I don’t know that’s true but it seems like something a lazy, dumb Trump campaign would do.

  26. 26.

    hueyplong

    @Baud: Soon Trump will say, “I’d have won, too, if it hadn’t been for Kambala and Walz, those meddlesome kids.”

  27. 27.

    Gvg

    @tokyocali (formerly tokyo ex-pat): Maybe the vetting docs on the alternate choices were worse? How can we know without comparing them. After all, the other floated choices that we know about have worse things already known. Yes, really.

    They are all terrible people now. The semi good ones are dead or in exile.

  30. 30.

    TBone

    I saw a photo of Donold from his latest feebly attended rally and it appears that he has the microphone in his mouth like a lollipop.  His face is bright red from yelling/screaming and he looks like a girl who is regretting her choice with that thing in his mouth.

  31. 31.

    tokyocali (formerly tokyo ex-pat)

    @TBone: In other words, they knew how bad it was and still went with the couch.

     

    @Gvg: I think you’re right. They really have little to choose from. They’re all bad hires as Kay would say.

  32. 32.

    hueyplong

    Maybe they’re just holding the docs back because seeing Stone as the alleged hacking target leaves them temporarily confused as to whether it’s a GOP scheme to play along with or the GOP as victims who need to be protected.

    Sadly, in all the confusion, Harris was able to parade openly in a tan pantsuit, thus imperiling The Republic (which is not a democracy, libtard).

  38. 38.

    hueyplong

    @TBone: Or, Donold could be showing us a side he hasn’t revealed before and which McNaughton is unlikely to depict in his next hagiographic “painting.”

  40. 40.

    Baud

    The hacker should have emailed the vetting document to Hunter Biden’s laptop. Then the media would be interested.

  41. 41.

    TBone

    @David 🐝KHive🐝 Koch: you’re darn right!  When my nephew was born during the World Series won by the Phillies, I got him his very first teddy bear wearing a Phillies uniform that says “COACH” on my way to the hospital.

  43. 43.

    JWR

    I listened to an interview with Sidney Blumenthal today, and he says he’s heard that Donald Trump isn’t speaking to his son. Didn’t say which one, but too bad, so sad. :(

    PS. ;

    ETA, the interview is from Background Briefing with Ian Masters.

    America’s Historical Irony of its Foundation in a Revolution Against a Mad King Only to Possibly Re-elect a Mad King Anointed by the Supreme Court With Monarchical Power and Immunity (Length: 21:14)
    With Sidney Blumenthal

  47. 47.

    rodwell

    I believe the other problem that TFCG and JV and the republicans are having is that Walz was a public-school teacher.  Republicans have spent decades demonizes and belittling schoolteachers.  TFCG statement yesterday that Walz never had a real job.  Like being a teacher and solder are not real jobs.  Walz is relatable and competent person on campaign trail which goes against all goes against their assumptions of public-school teachers.  They do not know how to deal with it.

  48. 48.

    WereBear

    @knally: Depends on how you view pre-feminism kitsch.

    I had a very good Fifties cookbook I read at my grandmother’s house. I helped her with making noodles and canning. Many recipes had a footnote about the lady who donated her recipe to this cookbook.

    One had her own name. All the rest were Mrs. MaleName HisLastName, of course.

    It was, to my primary school brain, as horrifying as science fiction. They vanished, leaving only this recipe, unnamed. Made me a feminist around third grade.

  51. 51.

    raven

    @WereBear:

    Outrageous, preposterous, bombastic, chauvinistic, outlandish, and dismissive are all words used to describe George Leonard Herter (1911–1994). The New York Times describes him as a “surly sage, gun-toting Minnesotan and All-American crank” and an “oddball know-it-all.”

    We rather like to think of this expert raconteur with the qualified affection one might have for an occasionally racist, frequently misogynist, and most certainly unhinged distant relative. 

    Herter, an outdoor goods store owner and operator by day, was also a prolific writer. An appreciation for culture and good eating led to his self-published cookbook, Bull Cook and Authentic Historical Recipes and Practices (1960). By 1966 Herter claimed that over a million copies had sold, “more than any other cookbook ever published.” Though his calculations are specious, the book was indeed a massive hit and had been reprinted fifteen times by 1970. He followed with two additional volumes. The series is now something of a cult classic.

  53. 53.

    TBone

    Sad news 😞

    RIP to the legend Gena Rowlands, whose work in a few of the films of John Cassavetes is incredible, among other accomplishments.

    I really liked her in Gloria, my introduction years ago.

  56. 56.

    WereBear

    @Baud: The latest normal is extraordinary when you consider I’m a kind of time traveler that way.

    I was a quiet child who could be sat in the corner with a book, and all summer, I’d get to read old stuff. Grandparents went to flea markets every Saturday and I’d get some money to spend on books, and Reader’s Digest Condensed Books where everywhere, and contained more books.

    Every summer, I immersed myself in short & sanitized versions of the decades before me. Like a child’s version of living through it, secondhand, as one does as a child.

    They had a cache of Reader’s Digest magazines that went back to the early thirties.

  57. 57.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Baud:

    That’s one of those things that’s changed without many people realizing.

    Trust me, plenty of people noticed back when it was changing.

    It’s one of those details that just doesn’t come up much in the memory nowadays, unlike, say, women not being able to get credit cards without a husband or some other male relation signing off on it.​

  59. 59.

    TBone

    Seen in a comment section and am laughing about

    As Ukrainians had penetrated deep into Russian territory, Russians transferred a large number of reserves to the area to respond to the quickly deteriorating situation. In response, Ukrainians used a genius tactic to delay these Russian reinforcements. Ukrainians, most of whom can speak Russian without accent, called up Russian civilians in the area, ordering them to evacuate by posing as Russian officials. This caused large traffic jams on the main roads Russians were using to transfer military equipment over, severely delaying the Russian response time to the quickly developing situation.

  61. 61.

    Princess

    @David 🐝KHive🐝 Koch: So, theyre going by bus around PA then heading to Chicago. Are they taking the bus all the way there? Through Ohio and Indiana? Will they stop?

    Also, am I the one person who thinks Walz was a good choice and shows Harris’s wise understanding of what she needed but is otherwise not that interested in him? He was a fine blue state governor among other equally fine blue state governors who passed similar legislation. But there’s something, not about him himself — he’s clearly a good pick and a good guy —  but about the adulation and fanning around him that turns my stomach a little. I’m focusing on the future Madam President, myself. The person who will hold the power.

  64. 64.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    I just find it amusing that Walz possesses almost all the qualities that Republicans insist make one a “Real ‘Merican” … well, other than the ones they can’t admit in public, like the racism, the sexism, the cruelty, and that sort of thing.

  65. 65.

    MagdaInBlack

    @Bruce K in ATH-GR: It occurred to me that the “mid-west coffee shop safari” interviews never run into anyone like him, because folks like him are out there doing things, not sitting in the coffee shop bitching

    Eta: I grew up in a really small town, I’m very familiar with who sits in the coffee shop…and who doesn’t.

  66. 66.

    Ken

    Poll: Democratic attacks on JD Vance are working

    Said attacks consisting of “Did you see what Vance said yesterday,” followed by a 30-second video clip.

  67. 67.

    sdhays

    @Baud: Agreed. Unless “Robert” isn’t the hacker (it seems there was one) and they are sending junk to try to undermine the media’s credibility before a real release.

    I feel weird suggesting that since it’s a somewhat convoluted conspiracy theory, but it worked for W and his failure to report for National Guard duty.

  69. 69.

    sdhays

    @Princess: I’ve noticed it too, but I think it’s normal in the sense that people are just getting to know him. I think the weird feel about it is the compressed timeline – it wouldn’t feel strange to be focused more on the VP candidate for a week or two if Harris had gone through 6 months of primaries.

  72. 72.

    TBone

    Texas, having another normal, not weird at all 🙄

    Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office announced Wednesday that it found the State Fair of Texas’ new gun policy violates Texas law and threatened to sue the city of Dallas if the policy is not fixed in 15 days.
    The fair announced last week that licensed gun holders cannot bring their weapons into the annual event, a choice made partially in response to a shooting last year that wounded three people. Only active police officers and qualified retired officers will be allowed to carry guns at the event held from Sept. 27 to Oct. 20 at Dallas’ Fair Park.
    A letter from the AG’s office to the city of Dallas found the policy to be a violation of state law because Fair Park is a city-owned property leased to the State Fair of Texas for the duration of the fair.

    https://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2024/08/14/ag-says-new-state-fair-gun-policies-violate-texas-law-threatens-lawsuit-against-dallas/

  78. 78.

    rodwell

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: That is the problem.  Republican do not think teaching is a real job.  They think being a financial manipulator and a grifter is real work.  Actually, it is easy if you do not have any scruples.

  82. 82.

    RaflW

    My honors physics teacher in high school was a football coach. I don’t recall what, not a head coach, but he was not dumb! Dull, yes. Maybe he was more fun on the field. But it was a whole school year of “Coach Hatfield, why is Newton’s Law not just Newton’s Libertarian Suggestion?” (Kidding. Though I think we had a couple libertarians in class even then.)

  83. 83.

    Dave

    @Princess: I think it was a smart pick and Walz was partly picked because he appeals to different people than Harris and makes it ok to support her for those groups.

    Also think that was one of many reasons he was picked and that Balloon Juice has demographics that might be Walz oriented (I’m one for whatever reason Harris was never my jam but she doesn’t need to be and isn’t trying to force it basically it’s treating middle aged white guys like we are just another group which is overdue) though it’s fairly clear that is at best one of many reasons she picked Walz.

    An important one is he knows how to be and is comfortable being the support element sort of what made Biden work as Obama’s VP and that she seems to genuinely like him.

    So nothing wrong with not feeling the Walz hype for those of us that do it’s just a nice bonus.

    And totally great to be excited by Harris. What I like is that is a sort of big deal but she is so comfortable in her skin that she doesn’t need to highlight it’s just there.

    edit: she has really grown on me in part because she is so clearly comfortable in her own skin amongst many other reasons.

  85. 85.

    But Her Emails!!!

    @MagdaInBlack:

    It occurred to me that the “mid-west coffee shop safari” interviews never run into anyone like him, because folks like him are out there doing things, not sitting in the coffee shop bitching

    Most of the “ordinary folks” the media interviews in bars and coffee shops seem to turn out to be leaders of the local Republican Party or affiliated organizations.

  87. 87.

    artem1s

    @rodwell: ​ 

    TFCG statement yesterday that Walz never had a real job

    👀
    Name me one ‘real job’ that TCF has ever had. You know, one where he had to show up everyday at your place of work (like you know, the oval office) and pay attention to people who were talking about things that were not him. Sitting on the toilet Twitting and watching TV during ‘executive time’ does not count as work. Nor does sauntering in at 2PM and declaring ‘yourfired’ count as a job.

  88. 88.

    StringOnAStick

    @WereBear: I had the same bookish tendencies and when we moved back to where my grandparents lived, I read all their Readers Digest books and magazines; your description of them as short and  sanitised, just like a kid could handle is perfect!  Thanks for saying that, it’s so great for adding nuance to my own story.

  89. 89.

    RaflW

    @rodwell: This comment got me thinking about the whole GOP line that was pushed for years about “job creators”, as if running a business is the only worthwhile thing. Are the people who fill those jobs just chopped liver?

    Certainly the people — like Walz — who prepare people to either be ‘creators’ or fillers of jobs, well, that’s just sucking the teat of socialism, innit? Except illiterate & innumerate people can’t really do anything but the most basic manual labor, huh.

    Anyway, it seems like the whole fetish with “job creators” has died down tremendously. My from-the-hip theory is that people saw how quickly job creators were forced to become job destroyers in the Covid recession, and that little bit of rhetorical trickery went away.

  90. 90.

    Kayla Rudbek

    @Baud: yeah, even my Catholic college and law school alumni associations and my USAA membership now refer to me as Mrs. Kayla Rudbek on mailings. I would personally prefer Ms. Kayla Rudbek so I should go in and see if I can change my settings.

  92. 92.

    wjca

    @WereBear: One had her own name. All the rest were Mrs. MaleName HisLastName, of course.

    The main cookbook at our house was by Adele Davis.  Mom was sufficiently impressed that she sprung for the money to fly Davis out to California from Indiana (which, in the mid-1950s, was radical for a carpenter’s wife) to spend a week talking and working with her and her friends.

  93. 93.

    wjca

    @Princess: there’s something, not about him himself — he’s clearly a good pick and a good guy —  but about the adulation and fanning around him that turns my stomach a little. I’m focusing on the future Madam President, myself.

    You might want to notice that she’s confident of herself enough that it doesn’t bother her that he’s getting all that adulation.  Impossible to imagine her opponent like that.

  94. 94.

    A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)

    @WereBear: OMG, Reader’s Digest Condensed books! You are right, they were everywhere, and I got introduced to so many good books that way. Grandparents house was a gold mine. Also, National Geographic magazines!!

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