Harris Hits a Walz

Column: How Kamala Harris’s first big decision backfired

The final month of election 2024 begins with J.D. Vance triumphant, Tim Walz wounded, and the presidential race too close to call. By now, it should go without saying that Walz bombed in Tuesday’s debate with Vance. The Democratic vice presidential nominee appeared nervous and uncomfortable and uncertain of how to respond to the conflict between Israel and Iran. He hardly landed a blow on the youthful, confident, fluent, and unflappable Vance until the final minutes of the bout. Walz spoke too fast, made silly faces, and squirmed when confronted with the fact that for years he’d been lying about visiting Hong Kong during the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989. “I’m a knucklehead at times,” Walz blurted.

That’s an understatement. Walz is more than a knucklehead. He’s a liability. Why? Because vice presidential nominees take an electoral version of the Hippocratic Oath: Do no harm to the top of the ticket. Walz had a good rollout and a quick and effective speech at the Democratic National Convention. He entered the debate with positive favorable ratings. Yet he’s become a distraction for Kamala Harris and her campaign. Walz is a walking reminder that Harris’s judgment is questionable at best.

The problems began with evidence that Walz misrepresented his military service. They mounted with further evidence that Walz inflated additional items on his résumé. The campaign limited Walz’s contacts with the media, fearing that he might display ignorance or misalignment with Harris’s deliberately vague message. His stances on race and gender identity and, as J.D. Vance pointed out, abortion undercut the soft-focus moderation Harris is selling in TV ads and interviews. Nor do his selfies with far-left scion Alex Soros reinforce Walz’s preferred image as the aw-shucks football coach from Mankato.

The debate showcased these liabilities while revealing others. Walz was lucky that there was, shockingly, a single question on foreign policy. He was awkward and tongue-tied when asked if Israel had the right to take preemptive action against Iran. He defended Obamacare’s individual mandate to buy health insurance despite its longstanding unpopularity and repeal in 2017. His prevarication on late-term abortion enhanced his reputation for dishonesty. His rat-a-tat delivery and awkward and jumbled turns of phrase, including the utterance “I’ve become friends with school shooters,” left this audience member alternately confused and zoned out.

This was not a man prepared to be president. This was not a man prepared to be vice president. Walz came across instead as a semi-competent progressive governor of a midsized state. Friendly guy, maybe, but he’s not ready for the nuclear codes.

Democrats were also disappointed that Walz didn’t seize every opportunity to attack J.D. Vance and Donald Trump as MAGA extremists threatening the republic. Nor did he spend much time praising Harris’s background, experience, and bold leadership for a new way forward. To the contrary: He agreed with Vance throughout the evening.

The result was a debate over domestic policy that established a few points of common ground and was praised in the media as civil and substantive. That was not what the Harris team wanted. They would have been much happier had Walz run out the clock calling Vance a lying weirdo.

Thus Harris was left with the worst of both worlds: Not only did Walz lose, but he hardly tried to bring Vance down with him. Yes, Walz scored points toward the end when he zinged Vance for refusing to admit that Trump lost the 2020 election. But the exchange was also notable for being the lone section of the debate where Vance played defense.

Walz said during his closing statement that Harris is “bringing us a politics of joy.” Joy is what many Democrats and independents felt after President Biden dropped out of the race and his party coalesced around his 59-year-old vice president, who can read from a teleprompter, as its nominee. That was two months ago. Joy is not what many Americans feel this first week of October as war comes to the Middle East, survivors of Hurricane Helene deal with the wreckage, and the first dockworkers’ strike since 1977 stops half the nation’s ocean shipping.

The one major decision Kamala Harris has made in this compressed campaign is choosing a running mate. That choice came down to Walz or Pennsylvania’s Josh Shapiro. Rather than select the highly popular 51-year-old governor of the most important state in this election, Harris chose Walz.

Why? Shapiro’s identity as a pro-Israel Jew might have outraged the Democrats’ progressive anti-Israel base. And Shapiro came into his job interview with demands, asking for guarantees and a seat at the high table.

How dare he. Shapiro’s “baggage” was his ethnicity and his religion and his interest in recognition and authority. All this was too much for Harris, who opted for the progressive agent of organized labor who governs a state that hasn’t voted for a Republican for president in half a century and who says that Rep. Ilhan Omar’s presence in Congress brightens his day.

Harris made the wrong decision. A bad decision. How many more will she make if she becomes president?