Tim, who will be vice president? Walz gives Harris campaign a rural, grassroots voice

This summer I canceled a long planned trip overseas. My son and his wife were moving to Nebraska, and they also had four cats to move. So they brought me in to drive a 30-foot moving truck full of film equipment through the mountains and across the seemingly endless Midwest.

This is a part of the world I know well. I taught in a small school in Nebraska, had a brief period of discernment in Sewanee, and then returned to be around children in another small Methodist school in eastern Kansas. In the process, I learned to really appreciate this flat but very beautiful part of the world.

It’s the vast plain of wheat, corn and sunflowers, and ranching, especially in western Nebraska. It’s the historic birthplace of the “Grange,” a populist movement of the 1860s and ’70s started by a grumpy old farmer named Oliver Kelly, who believed that planters were better off working together against the transportation interests—in a kind of guild—rather than trying to make their own individual deals with the railroads.

It’s the kind of cautious progressivism that’s common in Kansas and Nebraska, all the way to the northernmost farm states of Minnesota and Wisconsin. It’s also the kind of moderate conservatism that led Kansas residents to reject an amendment to their state constitution that would have allowed the legislature to bury women’s reproductive rights.

And that’s the kind of reserved, reasonable, but unapologetic political viewpoint of Kamala Harris’s choice for vice president.

When Harris evaluated potential vice presidential candidates, she had little time, a multitude of contenders, and a dizzying array of strategic possibilities to consider. By last week, she was down to three: Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a popular but left-leaning candidate with a strong record of turning out votes for his party; Arizona’s Mark Kelly, clearly a key figure in the swing state; and an outsider, Tim Walzgovernor of Minnesota, a state already in Harris’ column, and not a national figure of the status of Shapiro (the brain trust’s choice among many political scientists) or even Kelly.

For those interested only in charts, numbers, and electoral voting strategies, Walz makes little sense. Despite his gibberish about “swing counties” and the Blue Wall, he is a relatively conservative man, far removed from the urban leftism of many Democrats; he falls more into the ideological role of a Chuck Hagel than a Chuck Schumer.

His personal story is remarkably clear and crisp. He grew up in the farmlands of Nebraska, joined the National Guard at 17, was educated in the dunes at Chadron State College (no Harvard/Yale experience here), and was a teacher and football coach for much of his life.

He and his wife settled in Mankato, Minnesota, where he eventually entered politics. He came first and foremost from a rural background, from an increasingly small group of Americans who are increasingly forgotten in the American political process.

Even The oniona satirical publication, had a hard time lampooning Walz. When they said his most-used phrase was “thin,” I thought, “Well, again, The onion “reports reality.”

Walz, however, is an experienced and astute administrator. It has occurred to more than one of us here that perhaps he was not chosen for his campaign style, or for his appeal to voters, or for his willingness to confront his opponents in debate.

Perhaps the real appeal of Governor Walz is that he might know a thing or two about governing This surpasses (no pun intended) all of his attributes as a campaigner. We could see someone selected not for what he can do for the ticket, but for what he can do for the office.

And that would be a real injection of reason into the treacherous mess that is an election year: someone running for office who might actually know how to do their job.

R. Bruce Anderson is the Dr. Sarah D. and L. Kirk McKay, Jr. Chair in American History, Government, and Civics and the Miller Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Florida Southern College. He is also a columnist for The Ledger and a political consultant and on-air commentator for WLKF Radio in Lakeland.

This article was originally published on The Ledger: Tim Walz gives Harris’ campaign a rural, anti-elite edge | Anderson