“Black Vote, Black Power,” a collaboration between Keith Boykin and Word In Black,
examines the issues, the candidates, and what’s at stake for Black America in the 2024 presidential election.
I’m in Philadelphia for Kamala Harris’s campaign rally, and the energy here is electric.
Harris just picked Minnesota Governor Tim Walz to be her running mate, and I couldn’t be more excited.
Who is Tim Walz? He’s a small-town boy who grew up working on a farm. A patriot who joined the National Guard and served for 20 years. A high school social studies teacher. A high school football coach. A veteran. A hunter, a gun owner, and a skilled marksman. A midwesterner who knows rural America. He’s the type of man Republicans claim to love, but unlike the men who lead today’s Republican Party, Walz has a heart.
Thank you for bringing back the joy.
Tim Walz
Walz is pro-union, supports a strong minimum wage, and voted for President Obama’s Affordable Care Act when he served in Congress. And unlike the coach stereotype, he had the courage to serve as the faculty adviser for the student LGBTQ group on campus. He’s funny on the stump, but he’s a great attack dog. And he means business. Walz appointed Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison to prosecute Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis police officer who murdered George Floyd. But even though progressives love him, he doesn’t come across as threatening to middle America.
“And in 91 days,” as Harris said today, “the nation will know Coach Walz by another name: Vice President of the United States.”
As soon as Walz was announced, independent progressive Bernie Sanders endorsed him on the left, and conservative Joe Manchin endorsed him on the right. Do you know how hard that is to get those two to agree on anything? That’s like a Nobel Peace Prize in Democratic politics. Heck, even AOC endorsed him.
Walz helps heal the party and avoids a big conflict at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago over Gaza. He keeps the momentum going for Harris, and he matches her joyful energy.
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But isn’t he another old white guy? Um, hello. Tim Walz, Kamala Harris, and I are all about the same age. We were born 16 months apart. And all of us are younger than Barack Obama. So, in my biased opinion, he’s still a young guy. Yes, he looks a lot older than Kamala and me, but we all know black don’t crack.
And actually, his avuncular appearance and relatable life story make him much more appealing to the voters Harris needs to win the battleground states like Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. Comparing JD Vance to Walz is like a “matchup between the varsity team and the JV squad,” Harris said today.
He balances the ticket, and his energy matches Kamala’s.
I know some people wanted other candidates, and they all had different assets. Mark Kelly is an astronaut. Pete Buttigieg is a great communicator. Josh Shapiro is hugely popular in the critical state of Pennsylvania. And originally, I wanted Andy Beshear, the youthful governor of Kentucky.
But in the past few weeks of watching him campaign for Harris, Walz won me over.
“You’ve legalized recreational marijuana, you passed universal background checks on guns, you expanded LGBTQ protections, you implemented tuition-free college for low-income Minnesotans. There’s free breakfast and lunch for school kids,” Jake Tapper said to him in a recent CNN interview.
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Walz didn’t skip a beat. “What a monster,” he said. “Kids are having full bellies so they can learn.” He didn’t shy away from his record. He firmly defended it.
Republicans are already trying to sow division in the party by claiming that Harris didn’t pick Shapiro because he’s Jewish and claiming, “No Jews allowed at the top of the Democratic Party.” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer quickly put that argument to rest, but the nerve of the straight, Christian, white male-dominated Republican Party to complain about diversity in the Democratic Party. Give me a break.
Democrats nominated the first woman for vice president in 1984 (Geraldine Ferraro), the first Jewish candidate for vice president in 2000 (Joe Lieberman), the first Black president in 2008 (Barack Obama), the first woman candidate for president in 2016 (Hillary Clinton), and now the first Black woman and first South Asian woman for president in 2024 (Kamala Harris). Meanwhile, Republicans have given us nothing but white men on the ticket for the past four elections.
That’s why I like Walz. He balances the ticket, and his energy matches Kamala’s. Other candidates are good on the attack, but Walz does the same with a smile. And when they join forces, they make a great team. As Walz said in Philadelphia today, “Thank you for bringing back the joy.”
Harris and Walz are happy warriors fighting for a hopeful future, while Trump and Vance are mean-spirited men stoking fear with a backward-focused campaign of doom and gloom.
Many of you don’t know who Tim Walz is, but trust me, when you see him in the next few weeks, you will not be disappointed. Kamala Harris made a bold choice in picking Walz. Now let’s go win.
Keith Boykin is a New York Times–bestselling author, TV and film producer, and former CNN political commentator. A graduate of Dartmouth College and Harvard Law School, Keith served in the White House, cofounded the National Black Justice Coalition, cohosted the BET talk show My Two Cents, and taught at the Institute for Research in African-American Studies at Columbia University in New York. He’s a Lambda Literary Award-winning author and editor of seven books. He lives in Los Angeles.
The post Who Is Tim Walz? Kamala’s VP Pick With Big Dad Energy appeared first on Word In Black.