Tim Walz

I’m generally feeling good about Walz.

Pete does a great job to talking about Walz and drawing an important contrast. Harris and Walz are designing their campaign about helping people, it's not about them. Pete also mentions how all of Walz's jobs as a teacher, football coach and in the air national guard have on thing in common, they're not about him, they're about helping others. Happy to hear Pete campaigning for Harris & Walz already. He will be a great surrogate.




cultivating & supporting other people

Kamala’s Wins @harris_wins
BREAKING: Pete Buttigieg just made the perfect case for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. Pete is by far one of the best surrogates Democrats have to offer. Retweet so all Americans see this.

Feeling more hopeful about November than I have in a while!


nice things


Jennifer Taub @jentaub
Yes, I am crying. If we work hard for the next three months, we can have nice things. Like democracy and reproductive freedom and joy and hope.

#HarrisWalz2024 #WomenForKamala

I always appreciate her perspective and her ability to tie things together. Just a few highlights from today's post.

heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/august-6-2024

While MAGA Republicans are already trying to define Walz as “far left,” his votes in Congress put him pretty squarely in the middle. His work with Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan to expand technology production and infrastructure funding in the state was rewarded in 2023, when Minnesota knocked Texas out of the top five states for business. The CNBC rating looked at 86 indicators in 10 categories, including the workforce, infrastructure, health, and business friendliness.

Walz checks a number of boxes for the 2024 election, most notably that he hails from near the battleground states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania and comes across as a normal, nice guy. He favors unions, workers’ rights, and a $15 minimum wage. He is also the person who coined the phrase that took away the dangerous overtones of today’s MAGA Republicans by dubbing them “weird.” As a student of his said: “In politics he’s good at calling out B.S. without getting nasty or too down in the dirt…. It’s the kind of common sense he showed as a coach: practical and kinda goofy.”

Walz is also a symbol of an important resetting of the Democratic Party. He has been unapologetic about his popular programs. On Sunday, July 28, when CNN’s Jake Tapper listed some of Walz’s policies and asked if they made Walz vulnerable to Trump calling him a “big government liberal.” Walz joked that he was, indeed, a “monster.”

“Kids are eating and having full bellies so they can go learn, and women are making their own health care decisions, and we’re a top five business state, and we also rank in the top three of happiness…. The fact of the matter is,” where Democratic policies are implemented, “quality of life is higher, the economies are better…educational attainment is better. So yeah, my kids are going to eat here, and you’re going to have a chance to go to college, and you’re going to have an opportunity to live where we're working on reducing carbon emissions. Oh, and by the way, you’re going to have personal incomes that are higher, and you’re going to have health insurance. So if that’s where they want to label me, I’m more than happy to take the label.”

Vice President Harris had a very deep bench from which to choose a running mate, but her choice of Walz seems to have been widely popular. Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who are usually on opposite sides of the party, both praised the choice, prompting Ocasio-Cortez to post: “Dems in disconcerting levels of array.”

Harris and Walz held their first rally together tonight in Philadelphia, where Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro, who had been a top contender for the vice presidential slot, fired up the crowd. “Each of us has a responsibility to get off the sidelines, to get in the game, and to do our part,” he said. “Are you ready to do your part? Are you ready to form a more perfect union? Are you ready to build an America where no matter what you look like, where you come from, who you love, or who you pray to, that this will be a place for you? And are you ready to look the next president of the United States in the eye and say, ‘Hello, Madam President?’ I am too, so let’s get to work!”

Pennsylvania is a crucial state, and Shapiro issued a statement offering his “enthusiastic support” to the ticket. He pledged to work to unite Pennsylvanians behind my friends Kamala Harris and Tim Walz and defeat Donald Trump.”

I always enjoy her satirical perspective

www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/08/07/tim-walz-policies-hell-trump-satire/

“He’ll unleash HELL ON EARTH” — campaign email from Donald Trump, Aug. 6, 2024, in reference to Tim Walz.

It was hell. It was a nightmare. And it was all Tim Walz’s doing. A vast landscape, vaguely evocative of Minnesota, with circles within circles of unthinkable torments almost too terrible to set down in words.

The outside circle, or limbo, was awful enough. There were lots of people practicing religious tolerance. Not just of Christianity, but also of other religions, which seemed like too much tolerance.

In the first circle, some children who could have been happily performing some kind of dangerous, ill-compensated labor were attending school and eating free breakfasts and lunches. All those tiny hands that could have been usefully plunging into machines, instead performing arithmetic and clutching nourishing sandwiches! What country was this? Donald Trump shielded his eyes as he passed.

In the next circle were people who had paid their debt to society who were having their voting rights restored. Some of them were ice fishing; it was hard to tell if this were a hell thing or simply a Midwestern thing.

The ninth circle was the most frightening of all. There sat a whole coven of women getting to decide, with their doctors’ input, whether to continue or end their pregnancies. Vance shuddered at the sight of all those vessels mistakenly thinking they were people. They were even voting! There were a number cats in that circle, just as the chanting children had warned. A panicked Donald Trump and JD Vance clambered to the litter box in the center of the circle and descended the staircase hidden behind it, down, down, down until they burst out of the nightmare hellscape.

When they were free, they looked around and beheld once more their policies: forced births, child labor, the Ten Commandments in every classroom. A great sea of red hats. All was as it ought to be.
Tim Walz’s hell was not upon them yet.

I have to admit that before I started reading this thread, I was not a fan of Universal Lunch for everyone, but you all have pointed out some really good points as to the advantages of it. That's what I love about the Peas. You bring different perspectives to the table.

This may have already been mentioned - I haven't read all the responses to this thread as it got a little off topic at one point - but I think there is another reason Harris picked Walz. He and his wife did IVF for 7 years to have their first child. I wondered why a 60 year old in his only marriage had such young children (teens and early 20's) so I got nosy and looked up his family life.

Reproductive health is central to Harris' campaign. She didn't have her own children which was certainly her choice. What better way to highlight the risks of another Republican administration than to have someone whose family (which the Republican's claim is sacred) depended on a science being threatened by the Republicans themselves?

I've decided that every time I feel depressed about things the Republicans are saying or doing in the next few months I'm going to replay Kamala and Tim in Philadelphia. Here's a link to the whole video. Although I haven't gotten past the very beginning yet, and all they've said is "thank you" and "hello Philadelphia," I can't stop smiling.  


Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in Philadelphia

I also wonder how much is spent on determining eligibility etc. It seems so often the paperwork is so extensive you end up with a whole army of people being paid to refuse some children on every level from schools, districts, states, feds and the incremental cost of adding more kids is offset by doing away with the bureaucracy. Granted I haven't seen numbers broken out, but food in volume is a whole lot cheaper than paper pushers. 

I appreciate all of you who have shared what you know about Walz. Until last week, I had never heard of him, but I already love him. LOL I follow kamalaharris and kamalahq on IG, and their energy is so refreshing after the past years of venom and anger and hatred that is spewed by Trump and gang. I would vote for her no matter who her VP choice was, but I hope they will be unstoppable. I haven't been this excited about someone I was planning to vote for EVER, even though in 2020, Harris was one of my least favorite of all the candidates.

I especially can't wait for debates! I bet they will be some of the most highly watched debates ever in the history of our country. LOL

Agree this is probably true. And let's remember that they're not feeding the kids steak and lobster. The food in the schools I've worked in looks pretty dismal, TBH. But it's made to be something that kids will eat because for some, it's the only food they'll get that day.

It used to be that schools here that had after-care programs also offered dinner to any child who wanted it, but that program was ended at some point. Not sure why.

Yes!  As a lunch lady embarking on my 25th school year, this makes me love him even more!  He’s BTDT!

And edited to say that I am completely supportive of Universal Free Lunch.  No question in my mind about the good it will do.

Don't forget the teachers who dip into their own pockets to have healthy snacks for kids as well assorted supplies..

Regarding free school lunch:
I worked for 2 years in a poverty area school. It was a 2 story building. One day I opened the door to the library and there was an unconscious 5th grader at the top of the stairs. After he was at the hospital and examined...He had passed out from malnutrition and hunger. He had been taking his lunch home to siblings and not eating.

I support lunches for kids!