Quick question: does anyone else think that Tim Walz looks like a jolly, fulfilled version of Dick Cheney? Walz really has some Cheney angles. Anyway, congrats to all of us, because Kamala Harris has chosen Tim Walz as her running mate. He’s a two-term governor of Minnesota, a former Congressman and a former public school teacher. He and his wife Gwen have two children, Hope and Gus, and they have one cat and one dog. Which reminds me… if Kamala wins, do you think she and Doug will get a dog or cat? They better. Here’s how WaPo announced Harris’s selection:

Vice President Harris has chosen Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz to be her running mate, opting for a former high school teacher and Midwestern Democrat to complete a newly assembled presidential ticket, according to three people familiar with the pick, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a decision that is not yet public.

The choice of Walz, 60, creates a ticket that many Democrats have said would be politically beneficial. Harris, 59, who is Black and Indian American and spent much of her career in deep-blue California, chose from a list of finalists populated by White men, including Walz, who have represented more competitive swaths of the country.

The selection culminates an increasingly intensive process in recent days, as the Harris team narrowed down the prospects and various factions of the Democratic Party lobbied for their favorites. On the weekend, Harris interviewed three finalists: Walz, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly.

Compared with some of the other prospects who Harris considered as potential running mates, Walz is less well-known and has faced less scrutiny on the national stage.

A second-term governor and chair of the Democratic Governors Association, Walz does not hail from a traditional battleground state — Minnesota has supported a Republican presidential candidate only once since 1960. But Walz’s credentials as a military veteran and gun owner who previously represented a Republican-leaning, rural part of Minnesota in Congress could help Harris appeal to working-class White voters who have turned away from Democrats and helped fuel Donald Trump’s political rise.

[From WaPo]

WaPo mentions several times that Walz isn’t widely known outside of Minnesota, but the selection of Walz shows that he was more than willing to introduce himself on a national stage and to do so on his terms. Out of all of the men on Harris’s shortlist, Walz did the most to publicly audition for Harris and the party, repeatedly appearing on cable news shows and playing up his happy-warrior Democratic credentials and making Democratic Party arguments in a folksy, regular-guy way. Notably – for Washington – Walz is not a product of elite Ivy League schools either. He went to state schools and public schools. Walz is going to do very well on the national campaign trail, and his selection is very popular with unions too.

Here is your Vice Presidential pet report. Reported VP pick Tim Walz has a dog named Scout and a cat named Afton. pic.twitter.com/X5H7Dcroav

— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) August 6, 2024

Photos courtesy of Tim Walz’s Instagram.