The Morning Briefing: GOP Should Send Kamala Harris a 'Thank You' Card for Picking Walz

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OK, about Tim Walz.

When I found out on Tuesday morning that the DNC had chosen Tim Walz as its approved chaperone/babysitter for Kamala Harris, much of the nagging dread I've been writing about went away. After all the flailing they had done while trying to pretend that Joe Biden was still with us mentally, it looked like the Democrats might be getting a little bit of their act together during the Harris honeymoon.

When they went with one of the least strategically sound choices they had for the Number Two spot, I knew that my fear of the DNC turning into a well-oiled machine before the election wasn't going to be realized. We'll take a quick spin through some of what my colleagues wrote about Walz yesterday, then wrap up with my thoughts on that point.

Let's begin with this from my PJ Media colleague Scott Pinsker:

Walz was the man whom Republicans feared the least because he doesn’t have a dynamic personality, he won’t activate any key voting blocs (i.e. African American, Asian, Latino), and he would have the least amount of overall electoral influence. Additionally, his abysmal management during the Black Lives Matter riots is tailor-made for GOP attacks. George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis, and Walz’s state was ground zero for the BLM movement.

Bingo. As Scott details earlier in the post, Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly or Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro would have been more logical choices, and they were the two I worried most about. Not that I wouldn't like to get Kelly out of Arizona, but I would prefer it not be something upwardly mobile.

Over at our sister site HotAir, my friend Ed Morrissey writes that the fact that Walz is almost unknown outside of Minnesota provides a great opportunity for the GOP to define him. The Trump campaign and the RNC have been doing just that. The Trump War Room account on Twitter/X has been on fire since Tuesday. Here's an example:

Walz — who set up a snitch line for Minnesotans to report their own neighbors for violating his deranged COVID orders — claims his "golden rule" is "mind your own damn business" pic.twitter.com/QF9vyjRaqj
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) August 7, 2024

Because the Trump Republican Party is one that fights, Walz is getting roundly taken to task for his ongoing stolen valor prevarication about his military service. It's a story that gets worse the longer it goes on. My friend Matt Vespa has more on that at Townhall. As Matt points out, even the lapdogs at CNN couldn't avoid the truth of the story.

Tim Walz is a target-rich candidate for mockery. The more that undecided voters learn about him, the less there is to like. The coastal Democrats don't care about stolen valor — Dick Blumenthal is the senior senator from Connecticut, after all. That doesn't seem like the kind of thing that is going to play well with the voters that the Democrats should be going after, which brings back to why I think this is more flailing on their part.

The Hallelujah chorus, "Yas Queen!" fever we've seen from the Democrats and their flying monkeys in the mainstream media since July 21 is going over like gangbusters with people who were already going to vote Democrat in November. I don't believe that it's generating any sustainable groundswell of support that still hasn't gotten completely drunk on the blue Kool-Aid.

The addition of Tim Walz to the ticket just keeps things nice and insular. Joe and Martha Swingvoter in Flyover Country, USA aren't looking at Walz and thinking, "That's what I've been waiting for from the Democrats!" They're still flailing; they're just smiling a lot more while they are doing it.

You know, like crazy people.

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