The left loves Tim Walz. Can he unite the Democrats?

Headline suggests that the Democrats - who are currently more united than they've been since probably Kennedy - aren't united.

I drew a pic.

He can defiantly crush Vance and speak to the Midwest. I think that is what matters.

Dude got nominated like an hour ago. How are they putting out articles like this?

Like the average person ain't even got home from work on the east coast.

Donald Trump is ideally suited to expand Kamala Harris' appeal across the ideological spectrum.

I legit forgot what it feels like to have HOPE

Yep.

Harris has an edge to her, she’s quick-smart (imo this is good for presidential material) and that may be off putting to some (because women aren’t supposed to be like that , right?), however, Walz is straight up good guy and he can balance out the ticket as far as presentation.

My only concern about Walz is that he presents so strongly as a good guy/dad figure that, should Harris be elected, the typical behavior is to put the VP up for election upon the incumbent’s term(s) expiring. Does he have the presence to be the potential presidential candidate in the future?

Yes.

Tim Walz for America's Dad

He was the best choice. They can win and we can finally force trump to account.

That’s absurd. He is left of center in the USA by a wide margin. Saying he’s not of the left or not a leftist is quite the goalpost, especially considering his achievements such as getting statewide free lunch programs at schools.

Socialist does not mean the same thing as leftist, and isn’t the criteria to be considered “of the left.”

Those who wanted Shapiro or another VP pick are just crybabies who are mad they arent getting everything they wanted.

Media Bias Fact Check | bot support

They forgot quotes; by "left" and "progressive" they mean republican-lites.

The left’s romance with Walz is deeply entwined with hostility to his chief rival for a spot on the ticket: Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro. Harris’s decision on Shapiro, who has a history of hostility with the party’s pro-Palestinian faction, had become seen as a bellwether for whether she’d be meaningfully different from Biden on Gaza. Walz looked like the most progressive available anti-Shapiro, and so emerged as the left’s preferred alternative.

The Minnesota Miracle reforms, enacted in a single legislative session, read like a progressive wishlist. They include paid family leave, free school meals, marijuana legalization, a 100 percent clean energy mandate by 2040, and a slew of protections for organized labor.

But I use the word “progressive” and not its cousin “leftist” deliberately. The Minnesota Miracle policies are all squarely within the Democratic mainstream: none betray an ideological commitment to the party’s socialist or otherwise radical wings.

But Walz’s position on Israel-Palestine is hardly left-wing. The Atlantic’s Yair Rosenberg has put together a list of Walz’s positions and actions that basically reflect the traditional pro-Israel consensus. Walz’s position on how to end the current Gaza war is virtually identical to Shapiro’s. The most important difference is less Middle East policy than domestic: Shapiro has been far harsher on pro-Palestine campus protests than Walz has.

The strongest Trump attack on Harris, at least to date, is that she’s too far to the left. Scored by one (dubious) metric as the most liberal member of the Senate in 2019, she has drawn Republican flak for previous positions ranging from Medicare-for-all to banning fracking to decriminalizing border crossing.

Moreover, his celebrity status on the left gives Harris crucial running room to keep up the strategic centrism. By handing her left flank a victory, she’s theoretically built major credibility that she can spend to defray a left-wing revolt over some of her more centrist stances.