Walz under pressure to prove himself on national stage
(CNN) — It’s time to turn joy into votes.
Democratic Party Hall of Famers spent the first two days of their party’s convention doubling down on their 11th hour wager on their ebullient new presidential ticket.
Now it’s all on Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.
The vice president and the Minnesota governor are largely unknown to vast swaths of the country and have experienced nothing like the looming maelstrom of an election clash with Donald Trump.
But they can’t have hoped for more help than the Democratic Party giants of the last 40 years.
A president, Joe Biden, drew a curtain on a 50-year political career.
An ex-president, Barack Obama, implored a polarized nation to renew what Abraham Lincoln called “our bonds of affection” and to unify behind Harris.
Hillary Clinton, who came so close to breaking the male monopoly on the presidency, peered through the cracks in the highest, hardest glass ceiling and envisioned Harris taking the oath of office as the first woman president.
And another former first lady, Michelle Obama, declared, “hope is making a comeback” while beseeching voters to “do something” to thwart a Trump restoration.
Harris seeks to make her catchphrase a reality
But on the next two nights in Chicago, Harris and Walz must begin to answer whether their chummy double act can evolve into a serious electoral movement as their campaign enters a critical new stage.
It begins on Wednesday, when Walz will be under pressure to make the leap to the national political stage. The next night, it’s Harris’ turn, as she seeks to match her transformation of the 2024 campaign with a reinvigoration of her own political reputation after a difficult vice presidency.
Harris has largely erased Trump’s polling leads. She’s revived Democratic hopes of winning back the House and holding the Senate. And she’s conjured an optimistic path for America that veers away from the dystopian vision of a nation under the grip of strongman rule favored by the GOP nominee.
She’s coined a mantra that her party, fearful of Trump’s return, is eagerly embracing: “We are not going back.”
But that’s the easy part.
Harris and Walz now need to turn the momentum, unity and fresh purpose rocking the Chicago convention hall into a campaign that can win a presidency.
She’s under pressure to prove that after an unspectacular vice presidency and a fast-rising but swiftly expiring 2020 primary campaign, she can sustain a bitter, close contest with a ferocious GOP opponent. And her prime-time address on Thursday night is her best chance to convince the country that she looks like a president and has the steel to be commander in chief.
Walz is up next
The country on Wednesday will get to kick the tires on a Minnesota governor who’s a military veteran, a former teacher, a high school football coach, a hunter and a middle-class Midwestern dad. One Democratic operative, pointing to the multiple demographics that Walz can play into, described him privately as a “walking coalition” on Tuesday.
But he will take the stage following an object lesson of what can happen when a vice presidential pick’s debut falls flat. Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, delivered an underwhelming address at the Republican National Convention last month that turned into a rocky rollout and sent his approval ratings tumbling, contributing to the Trump campaign’s late summer funk.
Vice presidential nominees don’t decide elections, but Walz, with his heartland aura, could act as a counterbalance to a Harris candidacy that might perturb some voters resistant to change.
Walz also offers an example to middle class men that they have a political alternative to MAGA conservatism. Democratic strategists hope that he could be especially valuable to the ticket in courting rural voters who respond to his homely outlook in a way that could potentially drive down some margins in districts where Trump runs strongest.
“Here’s a guy that can talk anywhere and people can connect with him as a human being, as a coach, as a former teacher,” former Montana Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock — who was renowned for connecting with cultural conservative voters even as his party moved left – told CNN on Tuesday. “He will talk to people where they are. He will talk to them about issues that matter in their lives.”
But Walz, despite being a former member of the House, comes into this test with far less time on the national political stage than some other vice presidential picks in recent years – including Biden, who was a longtime senator when he joined Obama in 2008, ex-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, who teamed up with George W. Bush in 2000, and Sen. Al Gore, who was Bill Clinton’s pick in 1992.
The Trump campaign recognizes the threat. It’s come down hard on Walz over the timing of his retirement from the Army National Guard shortly before his unit went to Iraq. (The Minnesota governor said he had no advance notice of the deployment.) Vance has attacked him over his erroneous implication he carried a gun in a war zone, which drew a clarification from the Harris campaign. And on Monday, the Ohio Republican – at the risk of further alienating female voters – accused Walz of being dishonest about his and his wife Gwen’s use of fertility treatments. The Trump team is also highlighting Walz’s liberal tenure as a governor, which threatens to complicate the Harris campaign’s attempt to highlight his wholesome temperament as a sign of moderation.
How the party cleared the way for its new ticket
Democratic Party elders have united on the same thematic strategy. As Walz and Harris sell optimism and hope after a grim decade featuring a global pandemic and Trump’s “American carnage” ideology, they’ve been anchored in an arc of progress, which party leaders see as the unifying rationale of their own careers.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi proved again she’s the party’s most astute power player by helping to nudge Biden aside and opening the way for a new generation to rise.
Biden, initially reluctantly, but ultimately with grace, credited Harris with co-piloting his most important achievements, handed her his legacy on the convention’s opening night, and boarded Air Force One for a one-way trip to lame duck status.
Clinton, with no trace of envy, looked ahead to the day when Harris could overcome the final barrier to women in politics.
On Tuesday, during East Coast primetime, Sen. Bernie Sanders threw the progressive movement behind the evolving economic populism of the party’s new leader.
The fierce urgency of the Obamas’ message was the most striking. The couple endured the pain of handing the White House to Trump in January 2017. Their speeches on Tuesday night showed the dread of the nightmare recurring.
The former first lady – who eight years ago told Democrats they must always “go high” in taking on Trump – delivered the most searing denunciation of the ex-president in this convention so far, condemning his race-fueled rhetoric.
“His limited and narrow view of the world made him feel threatened by the existence of two hardworking, highly educated, successful people who also happened to be Black,” she said, referring to herself and her husband. “Who’s going to tell him that the job he’s currently seeking might just be one of those ‘Black jobs?’” she said.
The 44th president argued, with the authority of someone who’s done the job, that Harris is deeply qualified to be president and framed Walz as utterly authentic. “I love this guy. Tim is the kind of person who should be in politics. Born in a small town, served his country, taught kids, coached football, took care of his neighbors — he knows who he is and he knows what’s important,” Obama said.
But while evoking hope, this Mount Rushmore of recent Democratic heroes and heroines couldn’t shake the fear that their efforts might fall short.
“For the next 78 days, we need to work harder than we ever have. We need to beat back the dangers that Trump and his allies pose to the rule of law and our way of life. Don’t get distracted or complacent,” Hillary Clinton said.
Barack Obama added: “For all the incredible energy we’ve been able to generate over the last few weeks, for all the rallies and the memes — this will still be a tight race in a closely divided country.”
But the stakes seemed most visceral for Michelle Obama, who warned, “This is up to us —all of us — to be the solution we seek. … It is up to all of us to be the antidote to all the darkness and division.”
“Do something,” she cried, as the crowd picked up the chant.
As the convention’s most critical business begins, her admonition now applies also to Harris and Walz.
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