State senator Kristen McDonald Privet was declared the winner of the Democratic primary for Michigan’s 8th Congressional District. 

Rep. Dan Kildee, D-Mich., announced in 2023 that he would not be seeking re-election, leaving the seat he’s represented since 2012 up for grabs this cycle.

The primary race saw three candidates competing for the nomination: Kristen McDonald Privet, Matt Collier and Pamela Pugh. .

KEY PRIMARIES IN 4 STATES ON TUESDAY TO SET TABLE TO NOVEMBER SENATE, HOUSE SHOWDOWNS

Collier previously served as the mayor of Flint, Michigan in the late 1980s.

Pugh currently works as president of the Michigan State Board of Education. 

McDonald Privet currently serves as the first female state senator to represent the Great Lakes Bay Region.

The state senator also served as executive director of Michigan Head Start, chief of staff for Michigan’s Department of Education, and vice president of the Skillman Foundation.

As the daughter of a gun-owning, gun-control-supporting veteran and progressive social studies teacher whose calm, exasperatingly informed, “bulls—”-calling rebuttal of political speeches predated the recent media trend of “live fact-checking” by several decades, I find myself personally thrilled by Kamala Harris’ decision to select Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate.

Not only do the two men share the same devastating “you can’t be serious” sense of humor, it’s about damn time K-12 teachers got the respect and political prominence they deserve.

Teachers are the unsung heroes of democracy and Walz, who taught social studies for nine years at Mankato West High School, is a walking, gone-viral-talking reminder of that.

A reminder this country sorely needs.

Famous people love to praise their favorite educators from podiums, in interviews or while receiving awards. Remember when Tom Hanks outed his drama teacher after winning best actor for “Philadelphia,” which spawned the film “In & Out”?

And certainly Hollywood loves a good teacher story — from “Welcome Back, Kotter” to ”Abbott Elementary,” “Dead Poets Society” to “Precious,” the importance of educators is regularly celebrated onscreen with pathos and passion. Indeed, as the small-town teacher/football coach who became advisor to his school’s first LGBTQ club, and a former NRA member who became a gun-control advocate after the 2018 Parkland school shooting, Walz himself has a backstory that seems an easy sell in any pitch meeting: ”Friday Night Lights” meets “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.”

Still, teachers, particularly those at public schools, remain absurdly underpaid and overwhelmed, their profession honored by a national appreciation day and little else, unless you count a higher burnout rate than any other profession.

Here’s hoping Walz will help change that. As he said in his first campaign rally with Harris in Pennsylvania on Tuesday, while introducing his wife, Gwen, “a 29-year public school educator”: “Don’t ever underestimate teachers.”

Obviously, he brings many other things to the ticket. He is a six-term congressman and a two-term governor who leaped into national prominence in recent weeks with take-downs of former President Donald Trump and GOP vice-presidential candidate JD Vance, whom Walz famously referred to as “just weird.”

“These are weird people on the other side,” Walz said in an interview on MSNBC. “They want to take books away, they want to be in your exam room. That’s what it comes down to, and don’t get sugarcoating this: These are weird ideas.”

Whether clad in a suit or a “Dad hat” and T-shirt, he talks to people rather than at them and seems capable of making his case in a way that is both deeply informed and easily understood. His remarks went viral because they eschewed political jargon and explained the situation with same “come on now” ease that he used to deliver a tutorial on how to change out a burned-out headlight harness on a 2014 Ford Edge.

Which is precisely what the best teachers do.

If there is anyone who can deliver large amounts of complicated information in a way that educates and inspires a large group of disparate, distracted and fractious individuals, it’s a teacher.

Anyone who has stood in front of a classroom of high school students at pretty much any hour of the school day knows there is no tougher constituency, or audience, in the world.

You need someone to stare down bratty antics or blow up misinformation? As Walz has already proved, a good teacher can do it midsentence, without blinking, before returning to a lecture on westward expansion.

The hours of prep, the verbal facility needed to get and keep students’ attention, the vision to see both the entire class and the individual student, the patience to handle the inevitable disruptions, the diplomacy involved in many parental interactions, not to mention the increasing responsibility for classroom safety: Is it any wonder that teachers experience twice the amount of stress of the general workforce?

Walz has said he decided to go into politics after he took a group of students to a rally for then-President George W. Bush and they were asked to leave because one of the students had a John Kerry sticker. As origin stories go, it’s a great anecdote, but teaching was far from just a stepping stone for Walz. In office, he’s continued to champion public education as a key to maintaining a successful democracy.

After Harris announced Walz as her vice-presidential pick, he was quickly endorsed by both the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association.

“Walz successfully passed legislation providing free school meals to every Minnesota student, ensuring no child will have to learn on an empty stomach,” NEA President Becky Pringle said in a statement. “He increased education spending by billions of dollars, raised teacher pay, enacted paid family and medical leave for all families, provided unemployment insurance to hourly school workers, and expanded the collective bargaining rights of Minnesotans.”

The media will, no doubt, lean into Walz’s experience as a football coach — in 1999 he helped Mankato West win a state championship and political wonks love a good sports metaphor. But coaching a team involves harnessing a preexisting love of the sport. Being a teacher means showing up day after day to help a group of people, who often would rather be anywhere else, learn the things they need to know.

Whether it’s the danger of banning books and restricting women’s right to choose, or how to change a burned-out headlight harness.

It’s customary for me to write a piece this month titled “Beware the Ides of August.” It’s a take on Shakespeare, where Julius Caesar is warned “Beware the Ides of March.” The middle of March is what spells doom for Caesar. And over the years, I have found that the month of August – often the midway point – to be the most dramatic, historic and often volatile period in politics and government.

Richard Nixon resigned the presidency in August 1974. The U.S. dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. Martin Luther King Jr., gave his “I Have a Dream” speech in August 1963. There was the riot in Charlottesville, Va., in August 2017. There was even an earthquake in Washington, DC in August 2011. And not the political kind.

Will August 2024 measure up?

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July of 2024 is like, “August, hold my beer.”

We’ve got a lot of August to go. But July earned a special spot in the pantheon of extraordinary political months. The shooting of former President Trump followed by the decision by President Biden to bow out of the 2024 campaign were extraordinary news events. And then there was the political hailstorm which pelted the news cycle for nearly three consecutive weeks after President Biden’s horrific debate performance in late June. We haven’t even mentioned the Republican convention in Milwaukee and Mr. Trump’s selection of Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio as his running mate. Those tectonic shifts were significant enough. But failed to rival the sheer intensity of the assassination attempt of the former President coupled with Mr. Biden dropping out.

An astonishing case study into the intensity of the July news cycle came on July 24. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was slated to deliver a controversial speech to a Joint Meeting of Congress. Bipartisan Congressional leaders – but mainly Republicans – invited Netanyahu to speak to Congress for a record fourth time. But Netanyahu’s address would temporarily take a backseat to some of the other events.

Consider how the story shifted throughout the day on July 24.

Netanyahu would have constituted the news lede early that morning during any other period. But the testimony of FBI Director Christopher Wray to the House Judiciary Committee that morning eclipsed Netanyahu for a time. Wray was already scheduled to appear before the panel prior to the Trump shooting. But the failed assassination of the former president now commanded most of the nation’s news oxygen. Especially with Wray appearing before a House committee to discuss the FBI’s inquiry into the shooting.

Netanyahu wasn’t due to speak to the Joint Meeting of Congress until the afternoon. But Netanyahu’s address infuriated the left and many pro-Palestinian/anti-Israel demonstrators. They flooded the streets of Washington and clashed with police. They burned American flags and hoisted Palestinian flags in front of Union Station, just blocks from the Capitol. The dramatic video and audacity of the demonstrations captured the news cycle for a bit before Netanyahu’s speech.

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Then came Netanyahu’s presentation to Congress. The news here was just not what the Israeli Prime Minister said. But multiple sub-angles highlighted the controversy of Netanyahu’s speech. Many Democrats boycotted the Joint Meeting. There was the fact that Vice President Harris – who serves as President of the Senate – did not preside because she was speaking to a Black sorority in Indiana. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., – the highest ranking Jewish member in Congressional history – refused to shake hands with Netanyahu on the House floor. Netanyahu railed against the demonstrators near the Capitol, calling them “useful idiots” for Iran. Democrats who did attend the speech lamented that Netanyahu failed to offer a plan to get hostages back or call for a ceasefire.

But by nightfall, Netanyahu was old news.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a joint meeting of Congress in the chamber of the House of Representatives at the U.S. Capitol on July 24, 2024, in Washington, DC.  (Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)

President Biden was now healthy enough after a bout with COVID. He planned to speak to the nation about his monumental decision against seeking a second term. Yes. The president formally told the nation via X on Sunday he was standing down. But a nationwide address to the country is another level.

Never mind that buried in all of this was the fact that Harris quickly wrapped up what appeared to be support from Democratic delegates and Democratic lawmakers to stand-in for Mr. Biden. The country was exploring who Harris was and determining how she measured up to former President Trump. There was also a deep dive amid this into Vance, his policy positions and explorations of his 2016 book, Hillbilly Elegy.

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There was a lot going on.

So August, beware. You have a lot to live up to.

Not that those of us involved in politics or media are asking for another hellish news cycle.

Sure. There will be the Democratic National Convention at the end of August in Chicago. Harris just selected Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) as her running mate. There’s plenty to chew on. But these events don’t seem as dynamic as what we wrestled with in July.

Democratic presidential candidate, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and Democratic vice presidential candidate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz appear on stage together during a campaign event at Girard College on August 6, 2024 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

That’s not to say that other major things won’t bubble up this month. The Middle East is white hot. There are grave concerns about a conflagration which could engulf the entire region. One could always fret about the chances of hostilities between China and Taiwan. Another major political narrative could emerge about former President Trump, Harris, Vance or Walz. Mr. Biden is still President and questions abound about his final months in office. And then there is the unknown. August has a way of surprising people with historic events and episodes which spring out of nowhere, shifting the course of history.

Iraq invaded Kuwait in early August, 1990, setting off the first Gulf War a few months later. The Soviets shot down a Korean jetliner in late August, 1983, killing an American congressman and hundreds of others. Walz was major political news. But the decision by 2008 Republican presidential nominee and late Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., to select former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) as his running mate was a shock. Tapping Walz paled in comparison to the Palin pick. Never mind that a hurricane cut short the GOP’s convention that year. That’s because in 2006, Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast, forever altering the trajectory of former President George W. Bush.

So, beware the ides of August – just because it’s August.

But last month, it was “Beware the Ides of July.”