The appearance by Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz on Monday at Harvard’s Kennedy School is generating headlines. From Fox News via the New York Post,
Tim Walz says Harris picked him for VP to ‘code talk to white guys.’
From the article,
Walz said Harris chose him, in part, because “I could code talk to white guys watching football, fixing their truck” and “put them at ease.” The Minnesota governor described himself as the “permission structure” for white men from rural America to vote for Democrats.
‘Code talk,’ ‘permission structure,’ who speaks like that? In the event, “football and the art of pick-up truck maintenance” didn’t have quite the same ring, nor the same success, as a different fictional work from another Minnesotan, Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
Oddly enough, it was Harris’ failure to reach Hispanic and African-American men that cost her the 2024 election. Not to excuse the poor performance of Walz on the campaign trail.
Speaking of elections, the news coming out of the Walz appearance at Harvard was his ruling out a 2028 run for President.
Former Democratic vice presidential nominee Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz continued a self-described “listening tour” across the country at a Harvard Kennedy School forum on Monday night, ruling out a 2028 presidential bid.
I would observe that Harvard is located in Massachusetts, a long way from Minnesota, the state for which Walz putatively serves as governor. While fully engaged in his cross-country tour, with no apparent purpose, Walz has defaulted to a policy of benign neglect towards the voters back in the North Star State.
Back home, the state legislature has less than three weeks remaining in its 2025 session. The evenly-divided legislative branch is struggling to develop a two-year state budget with little-to-no input from the absentee chief executive.
We’ll find out soon how that works out.
