Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, whom Vice President Kamala Harris’ announced as her running mate, was endorsed by Bernie Sanders on Saturday to serve as Harris’ pick for vice president. That says all we need to know about Walz, and – just as importantly – all we need to know about Harris.
The endorsement by the Senate’s lone Socialist is not surprising – Walz is as far-left as they come. On the recent “White Dudes for Harris” Zoom call, Walz made it clear when he said, “One person's socialism is another person's neighborliness.”
On the two most important issues to voters – inflation and illegal immigration – Walz is no help to Harris. On the economic front, his record is clear – he is a traditional Big Government Liberal who believes in higher taxes and more government spending: In 12 years in the House of Representatives, he scored one “D” and 11 “Fs” on the annual National Taxpayers Union rating of Congress; he voted for President Obama’s $820 billion stimulus package, and ObamaCare, and cap and trade. As for the border crisis, as a Congressman, he voted for amnesty for children of illegal immigrants, and he opposed building a border wall; as governor, he has been a vocal proponent of making Minnesota a “sanctuary state” and proudly signed into law legislation to provide driver’s licenses to illegal aliens.
Traditionally, a vice presidential running mate is chosen to help “balance” the ticket. Sometimes that “balance” is an ideological balance, so different ideological wings of the party feel they have a stake in the election (think Johnson-Humphrey), while other times it’s a geographic balance (think Kennedy-Johnson), and still other times we’ve seen an experience balance (think Obama-Biden).
In each case, the running mate was chosen to help shore up a perceived political weakness on the top of the ticket.
Not so with the Walz selection. Walz actually helps magnify and accentuate Harris’ weaknesses.
For instance, Harris’ views on illegal immigration and her failure to do her job as border czar have been a major contributing factor to the border crisis, which has allowed, according to official government figures, 9.9 million illegal immigrants to enter our country since the Biden-Harris administration took over. Walz is no help on that front – as noted above, he’s all-in on the open borders agenda, pushing to turn Minnesota into a sanctuary state, signing legislation expanding driver’s licenses for illegal aliens, and opposing a border wall. He refuses even to call the massive flow of illegal immigration a “crisis,” he signed a bill to provide healthcare to illegal aliens in his state, and he used taxpayer dollars to provide free college tuition for illegal aliens.
Walz merely magnifies Harris’ weakness on the crime issue, too. She’s already under fire for having asked her supporters to “chip in” to the Minnesota Freedom Fund, which used the contributions it raised with her help to bail out rioters who committed violent crimes and set fires in the wake of the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Walz actually amplifies Harris’ weakness – as governor of Minnesota at the time, he froze for two days, failed to send in the National Guard, and let the city burn. As Senator Scott Newman, the chairman of the state Senate Transportation Committee and co-author of the Minnesota state Senate report on the riots declared in the Review of Lawlessness and Government Responses to Minnesota's 2020 Riots: “It is clear there were opportunities early on to avoid the level of desperation and danger, but poor decision-making and an alarming leadership vacuum caused the situation to spiral into the dire events we all witnessed.”
Walz brings nothing to the Harris campaign that she didn’t already have. He does not bring a battleground state – if Minnesota is a battleground state, the Democrats are in worse shape than anyone thought. He does not balance the ticket ideologically – Harris was already seen as a hard-left liberal who believes “everybody needs to be woke” and wants to make that her governing agenda.
What his selection does do, however, is raise questions – questions about how he was selected, and why he was selected, especially because at least some Democrats believe the far better choice was Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, and wonder if Harris’ decision to pass over Shapiro was a cave to “anti-Jewish bigots.”
With her choice of a running mate, Kamala Harris has defined herself: She is the most radical leftwing major party nominee for president in anyone’s memory, and her ticket is the most radical leftwing ticket in anyone’s memory. That is not campaign hyperbole, that is fact.
The choice before America’s voters is clear. On the one hand, we have an America First ticket, determined to bring inflation down, bring the border crisis to a close, send signals of strength to our allies and adversaries, and restore America to its full greatness. On the other hand, we have an open borders-loving, high-taxing and more-government-spending, inflation-boosting, soft-on-crime-and-the-criminals-who-commit-them ticket determined to move America to “equal outcomes.”
For most Americans, that really won’t be a difficult choice – and Harris’ failure to use her pick of a running mate to shore up her weaknesses, and instead to highlight and accentuate them, will play a large role in helping voters make their choice.
Jenny Beth Martin is President of Tea Party Patriots Citizens Fund.
