Former vice-presidential candidate claims pair should have held more in-person events around the US

Summary

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has criticized the Harris-Walz 2024 presidential campaign for playing it too “safe,” saying they should have held more in-person events and town halls.

In a Politico interview, Walz—known for labeling Trump and Vance as “weird”—blamed their cautious approach partly on the abbreviated 107-day campaign timeline after Harris became the nominee in August.

Using football terminology, he said Democrats were in a “prevent defense” when “we never had anything to lose, because I don’t think we were ever ahead.”

While acknowledging his share of responsibility for the loss, Walz is returning to the national spotlight and didn’t rule out a 2028 presidential run, saying, “I’m not saying no.”

  • @[email protected]English
    11•5 hours ago

    I’m reading his “safe” comment in a bit of a different light. The Harris campaign was playing “safe” politics by ooh rah-ing about the military, guns, and the border. By throwing their full support behind Israel and shouting down and cutting out concerned for the Palestinian people. By running around with Liz Cheney.

    Their campaign started off strong. Kamala was brat, Walz was calling Trump and his allies weird and joking about Vance fucking his couch. There was energy but they dropped the ball by switching to the “safe” Democrat campaign book. They didn’t go out to speak to the people where they were at town halls like Walz said in the article, they didn’t have firebrand Walz shining a flashlight on how bizarre Trump’s people are, they didn’t have a message that would excite the people and really shake up a statue quo that was slowly and inexorably draining Americans of their economic prospects. They just played the safe Democrat game of incrementalism and subservience to wealth and power rather than the people.

    Obviously Walz didn’t say all this, but I think the “safety” he refers to absolutely refers to Kamala’s campaign adhering too closely to a traditional campaign style that was not going to win them much enthusiastic support.

      • @RedAggroBest
        2•1 hour ago

        No, that’s exactly what he meant. They stuffed Walz in a box and paraded around with the Cheneys the moment they got that endorsement. They played safe by playing to the center when they started strong by picking one of the most progressive governors for VP.