07

Yesterday's most active thread by a long measure was titled, "She picked Tim" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. The original poster posted just after CNN revealed that Vice President Kamala Harris had selected Minnesota Governor Tim Walz to be her running mate. The original poster didn't have much to say and the entire text of the first post was "Now what?" The answer to that was over 100 pages of debate. The state of the Vice President selection process up to that point had appeared to have been a choice between Walz and Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro. Posters had debated between these two candidates and others for days. Walz had come to be seen as the "progressive" candidate because he had the support of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and other progressives. Shapiro, on the other hand, appeared to have the support of the Democratic establishment and, according to many posters, former President Barack Obama. When news broke that Walz was Harris' choice, reaction mostly broke along those lines. The Walz supporters were ecstatic while Shapiro fans were disappointed. Many of these posters complained that Walz was too liberal and that his selection signaled that Harris was capitulating to the left. At least since former President Bill Clinton made his first run for President, candidates have been expected to have their "Sister Souljah" moments. The term was coined when Clinton spoke to the Rainbow Coalition and criticized the then popular rap star for comments she had made regarding the 1992 Los Angeles riots. Sister Souljah moments have become a rite of passage for Democratic candidates to demonstrate that they are not beholden to the left wing of their party. Arguably, Shapiro has already had his Sister Souljah moment when he compared college students protesting Israel's war on Gaza to the KKK. While this may have put him in good graces with party centrists, it alienated him from many of the younger and further left voters. Walz, on the other hand, is unlikely to trouble himself with a Sister Souljah moment. Walz' support from the left was not a result of his own policies — those have been pretty much in the mainstream of Democratic politics. Rather, Walz has a number of characteristics that caused progressives such as Sanders to support him. First and foremost, Walz is committed to improving the lives of ordinary people. Second, he has been effective, using a one vote majority in the Minnesota state legislature to pass nearly his entire agenda. Third, Walz has a history of working in coalitions. He is focused on results and willing to work with either those on his left or those on his right — or even both at the same time — to get results. Therefore, progressives favored him because they can be confident that Walz is much more likely to view them as potential coalition partners rather than a group that he must publicly rebuke for political credibility. And, when they do work with him, they will probably get results. This is actually a case of the left demonstrating the type of political pragmatism and compromise that centrists have constantly demanded from them. Unfortunately, that compromise on the part of many on the left has been misinterpreted by some to their right to suggest that Walz is far more liberal than is true. Walz' popularity across the Democratic spectrum was evident by the fact that his selection as the Democratic Vice Presidential candidate was applauded by both Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Joe Manchin. As Ocasio-Cortez tweeted, this may be the first time that those two agreed on anything. Among Republican posters in the thread, the tendency was to simply cast Walz as a far left liberal. Having gone in for a penny, Republicans were quickly willing to go in for a dollar. The allegations against Walz went from his being "far left" to him being a "socialist" to claims Walz is a "communist" and so on. Most of these posters knew nothing of Walz or his record and had nothing intelligent to say.