Tim Walz, the Democratic governor of Minnesota, is becoming Kamala Harris’ Sarah Palin. 

In August 2008, GOP presidential candidate John McCain startled the country by picking Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to be his running mate. The choice was meant to buttress the Arizona Senator’s popularity with conservatives, and made history, as Palin was the first Republican woman to run for the vice presidency.

Palin was little known at the time but was introduced to voters as a plucky mother of five and a folksy “Mama Grisly,” a term she coined to describe herself. The attractive 44-year-old governor lessened concerns about McCain’s age and health issues, and infused his campaign with much-needed energy, drawing large crowds and enthusiasm. Most important, Republicans hoped the former mayor of Wasilla would attract working-class Americans to their ticket.

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Unhappily, it turned out the McCain camp had not sufficiently vetted Palin. She stumbled on the campaign trail, took a beating from the liberal press for lacking foreign policy chops, and despite being popular with conservatives, became a millstone for the GOP ticket, which lost to Barack Obama and Joe Biden that November. 

Most damaging, picking Palin made voters question John McCain’s judgment.

Like Palin, Tim Walz, the supposedly folksy marriage of Andy Griffith and Bernie Sanders, who is supposed to attract Midwestern voters, is not well known to U.S. voters. A national poll published just before Harris chose him found 71% of Americans had never heard of Walz or didn’t have an opinion about him, exactly the same response given in a Gallup survey when Palin was announced.  

Obscurity can be an advantage to a campaign, in that the team gets to define the candidate. But it can also become a nightmare as information seeps out that is unflattering and undermines the preferred narrative.

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That is what happened with Sarah Palin and what is now happening to Walz. It turns out that the progressive hard-left governor is not all that folksy and has a number of skeletons dancing in his closet. Scrutiny of his record as governor has illuminated why his popularity in his state has plummeted, and why his state is bleeding residents. 

Walz’ petty tyrant response to COVID, asking neighbors to spy on neighbors and ruthlessly shuttering businesses, his absurd trans-friendly policies like supplying tampons in boys’ bathrooms, and his decision to let Minneapolis burn during the George Floyd riots, raise doubts about his competence and common sense. Eight babies reportedly were allowed to die on the operating table after botched abortions, enabled by extreme legislation passed under Walz’ watch, is not “Midwestern nice’; it is disgusting and immoral. 

As Rolling Stone described it, Walz’ run as governor resulted in “a progressive legislative tour de force” that included “massive infrastructure packages, universal gun background checks, and much, much more.” 

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What the liberal outlet omits is the price tag: Minnesotans pay some of the country’s highest tax rates on personal income and businesses, and the state is one of the few to have a death tax and a statewide business property tax.  Despite enjoying a fleeting budget surplus, Gov. Walz clobbered the state by ladling on even more punitive taxes to pay for his far-left agenda.  

Moreover, Walz’ ugly attacks on his political rivals may excite his perpetually angry base, but are a turn-off for many, and especially the “Midwestern nice” folks Walz is meant to corral. In the White Dudes for Kamala phone-in, Walz blared, “Make that bastard [Donald Trump] wake up afterwards and know that a black woman kicked his ass and sent him on the road.” That’s blue meat and maybe effective for young people who were defecting from Joe Biden, but it won’t help with Middle America. 

Meanwhile, Walz’ military record has come under withering criticism from fellow soldiers who accuse him of resigning from their unit just as they were about to be deployed to Iraq. Walz has traded on his one-time participation in a prestigious multi-year program which would have raised him to Command Sergeant Major, the highest non-commissioned position in the U.S. Army. But Walz forfeited that honor when he prematurely ditched his battalion, and the program, on the cusp of being deployed into a war zone. He retired as a Sergeant Major but has continued to use the loftier title.

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Allegations of “stolen valor” surfaced almost immediately. Fellow soldiers, offended by his record, stepped forward to tell the truth about Walz’ record. Even the chaplain of his unit has spoken out, saying “In our world, to drop out after a WARNORD [warning order] is issued is cowardly, especially for a senior enlisted guy.” He accuses Walz of having a “very loose commitment to the truth.”

It is not pretty. The blowback became so severe that the Harris campaign had to walk back dishonest statements included in the governor’s bio. 

Just as Donald Trump was criticized for choosing J.D. Vance as his running mate, a conservative senator some claim did little to broaden the former president’s appeal, so Harris looks to have erred in teaming up with another far-left liberal. Though Harris and her pals in the press now disavow her progressive policies, voters remember her embrace of the Green New Deal, Medicare for all and open borders.

That is not where the country is. The recent defeats of Representatives Jamaal Bowman in New York and Cori Bush in Missouri by moderate Democrats suggest voters’ enthusiasm for far-left candidates, and especially those who are anti-Israel, has waned. 

Tim Walz fits neatly into that group. Fox News has reported ties between Minnesota’s governor and Imam Asad Zaman, a Muslim cleric in his state who praises Hitler, spouts antisemitism and is anti-Israel. Shockingly, Walz’ administration reportedly dished out $100,000 in taxpayer dollars to fund Zaman’s activities. 

As vice president, Kamala Harris has demonstrated neither the intelligence nor judgment needed to be a successful president; picking Walz does not move that needle.        

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