Commentary: Kamala Harris’ VP pick in Walz is as ‘normal’ as Trump’s choice of Vance seems ‘weird’

SINGAPORE: United States Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris had multiple strong options from which to choose to be her running mate. 
She went with someone not considered a top-tier possibility just a week ago – Minnesota Governor Tim Walz.
A popular Midwestern governor, veteran, former schoolteacher and high school football coach, he can appeal to both progressive and centrist Democrats as well as those who don’t normally vote for Democrats anymore: Blue-collar, white voters in key battleground states.
A quip of his from two weeks ago – “these guys are just weird” when describing Mr Donald Trump and Mr JD Vance – catapulted him to being VP nominee.
His opening performance shows he brings to the campaign a “happy warrior” vibe, one not afraid to engage in partisan combat but can do so with a smile while still carrying a proverbial stiletto.
Running against the Trump-Vance ticket does not call for selecting a policy wonk or a statesman.
Mr Walz openly calls out the bizarre behaviour and policies of certain Make America Great Again (MAGA) Republicans, using the term “weird” to highlight their extreme and unconventional actions, making him an instant leader in pushing back against their agenda in a way that does not frame the battle in apocalyptical terms.
Thurgood Marshall Jr, former White House Cabinet secretary under president Bill Clinton, said Democrats were elated when Mr Walz became the nominee, but are sober in recognising the arduous path ahead to maintain the White House.
“Selecting governor Walz gives a clear roadmap to Harris’ campaign strategy in how the party can line up to win in November,” he told me. 
Democratic operative Peter Goelz finds this pick a lesson learned from the 2016 campaign, when Mr Trump defeated Mrs Hillary Clinton. She had chosen Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia as her running mate, a politician more known for his intellect and bipartisanship than aggressiveness. While many Democrats believe he would have served as a great vice president, in hindsight he did not bring the campaign skills needed to get there.
“When going up against Donald Trump and JD Vance, the vice president needed to pick a person willing to engage in hand-to-hand combat in a way that does not turn off independents and other persuadable voters but buckles the knees of his opponent regularly,” he told me.
Mr Mike McCurry, who was White House press secretary in the Clinton administration added: “(Mr Walz) does all this while being a normal, nice guy who speaks Midwestern and does not look like someone’s idea of what a politician should look like. His appeal is genuine.”
Ms Harris’ pick of Mr Walz suggests his immediate focus will be on US domestic issues, including the economy and reproductive freedoms.
He does have certain experience in foreign policy, but clearly that was not why he was selected, in contrast to the experiences brought by previous VP nominees Joe Biden under Barack Obama and Dick Cheney under George W Bush.
As governor, he led trade missions to Japan, Australia, South Korea, Finland, Norway and the United Kingdom with the goal of expanding trade and investment ties for his state, including more exports of Minnesota-produced agricultural products, medical devices and clean energy products.
As a member of the House Committee on Agriculture, he gained a particular knowledge of trade regarding that sector.
No one would describe the soon-to-be VP nominee’s House career as pro-free trade, however.
Mr Walz opposed legislation that would have allowed the Obama administration to put the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement up for a vote, citing labour and agricultural market access concerns. He also opposed the Bush administration’s free trade agreement (FTA) with Peru and Mr Obama’s Colombia and Panama FTAs. He did, however, vote for the US-Korea FTA.
He does have personal experience with China. Notably, he spent 1989 to 1990 in China soon after graduating college teaching high school there. Further, he and his wife travelled there every summer with students from the mid-1990s through 2003. No surprise in this toxic political environment and era of increasing US-China tensions, Trump supporters are already suggesting he could be a Communist Party agent.
His involvement in international relations pales in comparison to the experience of a sitting vice president.
Over the past three years, Ms Harris has gained significant foreign policy experience, meeting with more than 150 world leaders and travelled to 21 countries, including meetings with Singapore’s then-Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, Chinese President Xi Jinping and many more leaders across four trips to the Indo-Pacific.
Particularly, since Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr’s inauguration, she has met with him six times and held the first-ever leader-level trilateral meeting with Japan and the Philippines, highlighting the US forming a critical new partnership to uphold the rules and norms in the South China Sea.
In very rare instances, a running mate has made the difference between winning and losing. Arguably, the last time that clearly happened was 1960 when John Kennedy’s section of Lyndon Johnson led to their ticket winning the state of Texas, which tipped the Electoral College in their favour.
Most often, people vote for who they want as president, regardless of who runs as their second.
Of course, a selection can be a liability for the ticket, such as how the then unknown and untested Sarah Palin turned out to be for John McCain. While he had little chance to prevail over Mr Obama in 2008 regardless, he undermined whatever opportunity he had with that disaster of a pick.
In August 2024, the jury remains out on whether Mr Trump’s selection of the similarly unknown and untested Vance ends up being Palin-like.
For Ms Harris, she hopes her choice of a happy warrior with crossover appeal will help her achieve victory. Or at least not contribute to her defeat. Right now, Ms Harris and her supporters have sky-high expectations.
Time will tell if the 2024 running mates are assets, liabilities or largely irrelevant on election day.
Given Mr Walz and Mr Vance are now the two people other than Ms Harris and Mr Trump most likely to one day serve as president, we know at least one of the choices matters a great deal.
For everything else, we wait and watch to see what comes next, from the normal to the weird.
Steven R Okun is CEO of Singapore-headquartered APAC Advisors. He is a veteran of multiple US presidential campaigns and Democratic National Conventions and served in the Clinton administration as Deputy General Counsel at the US Department of Transportation.