…when Kamala Harris made one of a number of catastrophically bad decisions: she selected Tim Walz as her running mate. As I wrote here at the time, it wasn’t hard to figure out how the dark horse Walz wound up with the nomination. Harris initially announced a list of five potential candidates. At that time, the little-known Walz was a throw-in, probably because he was the chairman of the Democratic Governors’ Association. But the candidates started dropping by the wayside: Arizona Senator Mark Kelly probably would have won out, but it was revealed that he was an investor in a Chinese spy satellite company. So he disappeared from contention.
As contenders dropped or withdrew from contention, Pennsylvania’s Josh Shapiro was the odds-on favorite, with only Walz still hanging on. Harris had every intention of selecting Shapiro, as evidenced by the fact that her VP nominee was to be announced at a rally in Philadelphia. Not Minneapolis.
But in the last days before the rally, the Democrats’ anti-Semitic wing–now the dominant element in that party–went crazy at the prospect of Shapiro’s nomination. Left-wing Twitter was dominated by #GenocideJosh. In the face of anti-Semitic pressure, Harris, never a profile in courage, wilted and chose Walz, who made his first appearance as a candidate in Philadelphia, at the rally that had been intended for Josh Shapiro.
The Democrats thought they could sell Tim Walz as a manly man, a small-town Midwesterner, a former assistant football coach. When has there been a worse political miscalculation? It was one for the history books.
Republican House Whip Tom Emmer, who represents Minnesota’s Sixth Congressional District, is not–to put it mildly–a fan of Tampon Tim, the “Jazz Hands” candidate. Emmer compiled this video to commemorate the anniversary of Walz’s entry on to the national stage:
One year ago today, the Democrats chose @Tim_Walz as Kamala’s running mate.
Their idea of “masculine energy” was the guy who put tampons in boys’ bathrooms.
The biggest political flop in history! pic.twitter.com/Eg7AWor9q2
— Tom Emmer (@tomemmer) August 6, 2025
