As soon as I saw how effective Governor Tim Walz was in interviews, I knew that he would likely be Kamala Harris’s top choice for VP. I was right! Walz is a happy, joyful warrior. He has the kind of liberal and progressive credentials that Democratic voters love. He has the kind of backstory that swing voters love too – his military service, his years as a teacher and a coach, a longtime supporter of the Second Amendment, a hunter, a sports bro. He has it all! I was so moved that his former students – including the championship-winning football team – were the ones who introduced him:
What’s so lovely is that America has not only been introduced to Tim Walz, but we’re being introduced to his amazing family. Gwen Walz is a former teacher too, and they have two amazing kids, Hope and Gus. Gus has special needs. The way Gwen and the kids support Tim is amazing. Gus shouting “that’s my dad” and the visible emotion on all of their faces… magical.
There’s a lot of talk about how “Coach Walz” showed up and something about how this is all a Ted Lasso plotline. The Harris campaign is really leaning into that branding hard, with Kamala calling him “Coach” on the campaign trail, and Walz treating campaign events like pep rallies. I believe. I believe that we. I believe that we will win!!
You know you’ve done well as a parent when your kids are as proud of you as Gus and Hope are of Tim Walz. “That’s my dad.” No three words better describe our next Vice President. pic.twitter.com/zNOyBjo5Fy
— Amy Klobuchar (@amyklobuchar) August 22, 2024
It's striking to see Tim Walz's wife Gwen and kids Gus and Hope overcome with emotion – bawling their eyes out as their father takes the stage. These are ordinary people. Down to earth.
Can you imagine Melania and the rest showing that much genuine affection for Donald? pic.twitter.com/KbTl81Ww5h
— Arlen Parsa (@arlenparsa) August 22, 2024
Photos courtesy of Getty.
Y’all, “That’s my dad” had me just bawling last night. I love them so much. It’s such a joy to have a couple wonderful, loving, aspirational families representing our country and the best of America.
Me too. Crying again this morning just thinking about it. The love was palpable and powerful.
the right wing sites are not reporting any of this…A MOVEMENT has taken hold-YOU CAN NOT MANUFACTURE THIS.
There are going to be some devastated republicans after this election.They have no idea what is going on here.
Our love and joy will win the day-the hope is palatable… NEVER have I seen or felt THIS… We are no longer in fear-ITS going to be over for the hateful among us..
I can not contain my joy. We have some beautiful people leading the way. WE CAN WIN
My lowest point was after that debate…When my hero Joe wasn’t up to it…I turned everything off for weeks-NOT ANYMORE
LETS WIN THIS THING!
I’ve just watched the clip (having read about it earlier) and yes, waterworks. Just seeing Hope tearing up and trying to keep it in set me off.
Tim Walz is a good man and a great servant leader. When I saw his son Gus bursting with pride saying “That’s my dad!” I bawled.
Coach Veep. I’m all in!
I just heard the part from a former student where he describes that coach was a high school football coach, but he also coached 7th grade basketball and track so that he could earn extra money to pay off the school lunch debt that was owed by a high school student. “Good Man” is completely accurate, but it is also not enough to describe the kindness in this man’s heart. Words are failing me right now.
In the past 10 years, it seems like bad forces have connected so easily in our country/world. The march on Charlotte, what Twitter has turned into, the Incel community, MAGA. But now I see that the good people seem to be connecting too, and their energy has power. It truly makes me happy to see it. My hope is growing.
Mine too, and it feels great. The Biden-Harris administration was a time of coming out of the dark and them telling us that we are safe and it’s okay to come out of hiding.
I love this man! He brings so much and his children’s reactions had me sobbing. Gus can say “that’s my Dad” with loving pride, and I want to be able to say that he’s my Vice President!
“That’s my Dad!” And then the finale: “It’s the fourth quarter. We’re down by a field goal, but we’ve got the ball!” And we’re gonna run like crazy in these last 75 days. Together, Kamala and Tim have restored my faith in the American political system—and in America too.
For me, you have hit the nail on the head. The draining of my hope and joy and pride to be an American has been slowly circling the drain since the first Trump candidacy. Seeing all of the people that supported him at the beginning, and then continued to support him after the truth of what he was became more and more clear – has been one of the most horrifying experiences. I am a former community organizer and I work in DEI. I have long understood how dissapointing people can be. But I always had a hope and optimism about the potential of the human heart. I now see how that was slowly dying. I have felt a growing spark and warmth since this turn of events.
Lee — I agree!! You put it so well. I’m an eternal optimist and it’s been a real struggle. I try to give myself a break because when I think back, Trump and his toxic spewing started up when he began campaigning in 2015 (!) ten years ago!! Withstanding a decade of it has taken a toll. But I‘m with you on feeling a little spark of joy breaking through. We got this!!!!
The difference between JD Vance and Tim Walz is like night and day. Why some people can’t see it is extremely vexing to me. Election day cannot come soon enough.
Truly. I continue to marvel that Walz exists. Man he is the entire dem strategist wishlist.
Meanwhile Vance is a cybord born of some tech-bro’s alt right, pseudo science, podcast douche fever dream
It makes me want to move to Minnesota so I could have him as my governor. But I prefer to have him as my vice president. They’ve got my vote.
This comment is for H…for some reason, I dont have the option to respond directly to you….if/when Tim Walz is no longer governor of MN, Peggy Flannagan is his Lt Gov. she is a member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe and will be the country’s first Indigenous American Governor and highest ranking elected official. ♥️
ETA she is just as awesome as he is in her own way 😉
It really is amazing that the party of “family values” never resembles it.
That’s my dad! 😭
A Dutch website, Natuurmonumenten, keeps sending me ads on hedgehog housing today. They’re supercute and wholesome…
It feels like they totally fit to Kamala Harris’s VP! I need to watch a ton of highlights from last night when I get home later, but it’s really nice reading articles on the DNC. She chose well 🪷💙
Yeah, Natuurmonumenten (Nature monuments) is a great charity.
They offer free hedgehog houses in their gardens, to help them out, and I think free bee packages as well (flowers that help bees).
It’s really a thing in the Netherlands now to remove tiles from gardens and let garderns become more natural, so that animals can find food or a home there.
This is totally the kind of thing I see people voting Democrat do in the US.
I’m not crying, you’re crying! So excited to vote for these people, Harris absolutely showed great judgement picking him. Let’s do football things! Run up the score!
I am very much crying., This is wonderful.
Who is cutting onions at this time of day?!?!?!?!?!!
OMG, Gus’s reactions especially just leveled me. Along with Gwen and Hope, I cried watching Coach deliver a terrific and inspiring speech. I was bracing myself for Walz’s words to bring some tears, but I lost it seeing his family and how proud they are of him.
He was soooooooooooooooooooo good!
He reminds me of all the good guys I’ve ever known over the years, and there have been soooo many of them. Trump’s greatest lie has been skewing everyone (me temporarily included) towards the belief that most men are jerks. They are not.
Yes, good point! There are so many toxic men out there, and they are the ones that we usually see promoted to power. But I’ve known so many wonderful men in my life, and it is so gratifying to see good people celebrated, and hopefully elected to the White House. The Democrats really model positive masculinity in a lot of ways (If you ignore Clinton).
It’s so good to see someone like TW as the candidate for VP.
Someone who’s not Ivy League, or a lawyer, or a career politician, or a multi-millionnaire who made their money by stiffing employees.
And having his family support him is an extra bonus.
Looking forward to seeing the Walz family move to the Naval Observatory.
When his modest financials were revealed a couple of weeks ago, financial websites were scolding him for not having planned for retirement. Seriously? You would rather have a candidate who spent his entire professional life accruing wealth and property so you could slam him for that? I wouldn’t worry about his retirement. One hefty book deal when he leaves the vice presidency and he, Gwen, and the kids will be set for life.
I have a LOT of public school teachers in my family. Their retirement plans look just like the Walz family’s, because they are underpaid, live on a budget, and usually end up spending their own money on supplies and such. Of course they aren’t going to have a million in the bank.
Lucy2 is right. But what makes it more remarkable is that, after being a teacher, Walz spent 12 years in Congress and now governor for 5 years. Both of those are positions where others have “somehow” made millions. He has not, because he was there to do the work, not get rich.
I love my governor and the rest of you owe Minnesota BIG TIME for sharing him.
Walz has the old fashioned form of retirement, Pensions. I’m tired of finance bros and their opinions.
I was also going to say, most teachers I know retire on pensions. They don’t have 401ks. This is a completely normal thing people who work in civil service positions as well.
Aren’t we STILL waiting 10 years later for dump’s financial records to be released?!?
His student said as a teacher, Walz looked for and took on extra work so he could help a student who had insurmountable school lunch debt. He didn’t make extra money to spend on himself…he did it to help a child in need. Amazing!
“Dems need to learn how to talk to folks who have gun racks in their pick up trucks.”
Howard Dean (2003) ☑️
Not American but I’ve watched loads of the speeches.. Coach Tim is the best! I loved every bit of it! Go coach Tim! We love you
He was always the best VP pick and I’m so happy Kamala’s campaign understood that. His wholesome coach-social-studies-teacher vibe is the antidote to MAGA.
I loved the former student whose speech started “Tim Walz is the kind of guy you can count on to help push you out of a snowbank. I know that because he helped push me out of a snowbank.” As someone born in the Mid-west, this hit me in a real way, and I instantly knew who he was. I hope other Midwesterners feel the same way!
Decent, loving, hard-working people who take care of their families AND their neighbors. That’s America. Unity, not division. Acceptance, not hate. That’s what we need.
Yall, not only was he amazing, but I skipped over to Fox “News” just to see how they were handling things….and they are not well over there. It was *chefs kiss*. They know Trump is going down.
In fairness, they haven’t been well over there for a long time.
Oh, what are they saying?! I’ve been curious, but just the sight of their pinched little faces makes me twitch.
Love that for them! ❤️
For a network that calls their viewers “cousin f*ckers”, their misery couldn’t happen to a more deserving group of people.
I’ve been tuning in on and off to see what they’re saying, and it seems to be a combo of coverage of the extremely popular policy plans and clips of speeches that sound positive and persuasive, covered as if they are negative things, and a peppering of easily disprovable outright lies. I feel like even their extremely skewed coverage may be enough to win over viewers who are hesitant to vote for Trump.
Excellent choice for VP, excellent speech, excellent man. Thank you, Kamala Harris, for making him your choice and giving us all the dad we need right now!
I have been happy watching the DNC, but Gus broke me down into tears last night. I’ve read that he suffers from anxiety, and as someone who deals with that as well, I can’t imagine how overwhelming all of this has been for him, and yet there he was, supporting his dad. His joy, love, and pride shone through.
These two families are the real deal, and such a beautiful contrast to the opposition.
I have been watching the Democratic convention and and what stands out are the dynamic and loving husband and wife partnerships and families featured- the Bidens, the Obamas, the Haris/Emhoff, the Walzes. Even the Clintons were there as a family, supporting each other in love and loyalty. Another impressive thing is the cohesion of the party and their presentation of their platform- so many speakers, each extolling the same points accompanied by their own individual stories and experiences. The whole “Democrat family ” displaying unity without hinting at resentments and anger as to how the ticket came to be. As Michelle Obama said, there is no place and time for such “foolishness.” Very impressive to someone observing from north of the 49th parallel. For the sake of the US and the rest of the world, there will be a Harris inauguration next January.
I wish I could share the email I just got from the Minnesota DFL with photos attached of the watch party at Mankato West High (where Tim taught) last night. HUGE turnout of excited and enthusiastic supporters. I would have been there as Mankato is an easy drive for me during the day. But at 75, I no longer drive very far at night. In any case, they never missed me. It looks like an incredible crowd lined up out the door while it was still daylight.
Aw, that’s really cute! It’s also a testament to how beloved the man is in any capacity–coach, teacher, governor, VP candidate–people just really like Tim Walz. ♥
I was watching the MSNBC coverage and wayyyyyy after everyone else went home, the Minnesota delegation was still on the floor, chanting and jumping and dancing and going ape!! It was so inspiring to see!!!! The way everyone who knows him is getting behind this man, he’s clearly the real deal.
I watched that too! Happy, happy people who didn’t want to end the night. It made me wonder if they were still there this morning! I can’t get enough of all this joy!
If I were democrats I’d flip the script again and start taking on the moniker “the party of family values” because the republicans haven’t been that in a hundred years (exaggeration obviously) it’s been at least 30. But the Dems have put forth candidates with solid loving families – we aren’t seeing that much in the recent Rep candidates. I’d love to see the Reps heads blow off if the Dems do this. The panic that would ensue. Btw all of this is my brain cracking up
I stayed up waaaay past my bedtime to hear Tim Walz because I honestly didn’t know much about him and I’ve been so down and scared these last few months.
My goodness, but my hope is back. I feel safe and I feel like my kids’ future is not in immediate jeopardy.
He was the perfect pick. Perfection.
Actual footage of me watching Tim Walz’s speech: “Omg is his son crying? Is his daughter crying too? Oh, Gwen’s crying too! Tim’s crying! I’M CRYING!!”
Last night had so many emotions. I cried with the couple who talked of their son being taken hostage by Hamas. Then the joy and fun of Stevie Wonder, then the Walz family had me sobbing as we all watched their love for each other. By the end I was exhausted, but in a good way.
I kind of wanted him to pull a ball cap, clipboard, and whistle from behind the podium and really get into his “we have another half to play, so we gotta get out there and win this game!” speech. He was awesome.
Damn, he’s good. What a phenomenal speech and presence. Geez!! We’re so lucky to have him.
When his former team walked proudly on stage, I was really moved. So many people can relate as we have those teachers/coaches in our lives who have inspired us. And his love for his family shows his genuine integrity. He needs to be our VP and Kamala needs to be our POTUS.