Reporting has broken within the past hour that, later today, Harris will name Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate.
I’m ecstatic about this. Having spent most of the pandemic in Minnesota, I saw Walz’s crisis leadership firsthand and I was very impressed. Additionally, as I noted previously I think that his personal story and background is an important counterbalance to Harris, in a way that having a 50-something T14-educated attorney would not have been. I had also been concerned that having Shapiro on the ticket could threaten the Democrats’ ability to win Michigan, with its significant Arab-American vote.
On a more personal level, way back on July 3rd on my Facebook page a friend asked me who I thought Harris should select as her VP if it were to come to that, and while I also mentioned Buttigieg and Shapiro I did end my note with “I also think Gov. Walz of MN would be a great choice.” At that point in time, I had heard exactly nobody suggest Walz as a possibility. What a month he has had.
And honestly, I think going with Walz is good for the future of the Democratic party, because it doesn’t tip the scales. If Harris loses in 2024, nobody is going to think of a 64-year-old Walz as the frontrunner for the 2028 nomination, just as by 2020 we’d already forgotten about TIm Kaine; and if Harris wins in 2024, I don’t think a 68-year-old Walz is going to want to run for the top job in 2032. As such, the shadow competition between Buttigieg, Jeffries, Newsom, Shapiro, Whitmer, and persons unknown to be the future leader of the Democratic party can continue.
In other news, yesterday SCOTUS predictably tossed Missouri’s effort to file an original action against New York to prevent Judge Merchan from sentencing Trump in September. As was true in December 2020 when Texas played a similarly silly political game with the original docket, two of the conservative justices appear to believe that procedurally SCOTUS was obligated to accept the case, but all nine justices appear to agree that Missouri was not entitled to the relief it sought.