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      Fifty years after Nixon resigned, a key player is still angry about his pardon

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      A sombre US president addresses the nation from the Oval Office. Despite all he has achieved, he will relinquish power and pass the torch to his vice-president. It is clear that he is bowing to pressure from his own party and leaving against his will.This was Joe Biden in 2024. It was also Richard Nixon in very different circumstances 50 years ago on Thursday. Disgraced by the Watergate break-in and cover-up, Nixon would claim an unwanted place in history as the first – and still only – person to resign the American presidency.For Elizabeth Holtzman, who at the time was the youngest woman ever elected to Congress, it was a day of hope – an affirmation of America’s system of checks and balances holding Nixon to account for his role in the Watergate scandal. But her optimism did not last long. A month later, Nixon was granted a full pardon by his successor, Gerald Ford.“The pardon was unpardonable,” Holtzman, who turns 83 this week, says by phone from her home in Brooklyn, New York. “The pardon created a double standard of justice: one for the high and mighty in this country and another for everybody else.”Half a century later, she still suspects that Ford’s motives were less noble than are often portrayed and worries that he set a dangerous precedent for the likes of Donald Trump. But as she reflects on a long career as a trailblazer, Holtzman is optimistic about the potential for America to elect its first female president in November.She was a 31-year-old Harvard Law School graduate when, in 1972, she beat a five-decade incumbent, Emanuel Celler, to win a Brooklyn, New York, seat in the House of Representatives. Foreshadowing Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Holtzman took to the streets and out-campaigned her better-known opponent, making her case to voters at every subway station in her district and queues outside cinemas showing The Godfather.The summer of 1972 had also seen the arrest of five men in a bungled operation to bug and steal documents from the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate building in Washington – a dirty tricks scheme aimed at scuppering would-be challengers to Nixon in that year’s presidential election.Nixon and his aides attempted to cover up the White House’s involvement in the break-in and obstructed the investigation by law enforcement agencies. Journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of the Washington Post played a key role in uncovering the story with the help of a secret informant known as “Deep Throat” (later revealed to be the FBI associate director Mark Felt).View image in fullscreenThe Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Senate Watergate committee and a special prosecutor, Archibald Cox, also investigated the scandal. It emerged that Nixon had a secret taping system in the Oval Office that recorded conversations. In 1974, after a long legal battle, the US supreme court ordered Nixon to release the tapes that contained evidence he had been involved in the cover-up from the beginning.Holtzman was one of the House judiciary committee members who recommended articles of impeachment against the president. She recalls: “The evidence was overwhelming. At some point I remember feeling as though I was in quicksand with no bottom, that we just kept hearing one fact of criminality, misconduct, abuse of power after another, and we just kept sinking further and further into that muck.”The gravity of the moment was profound. This would be only the second impeachment of a president in American history, following that of Andrew Johnson in 1868. Holtzman, who five years ago published the book The Case for Impeaching Trump, reflects: “Nobody was happy on the Democratic side or Republican side in voting for the impeachment of Richard Nixon.“It’s well known that the chair of the committee, Peter Rodino, a very liberal Democrat, went back to his office and cried after that first vote for impeachment. Nobody wanted to see it and I felt also very uncomfortable. It was a very difficult vote to cast.“Not that I had any questions about Nixon’s guilt or whether he should be impeached. It was obvious that the impeachment clause was written almost with Nixon in mind by the framers of the constitution. But that wasn’t the point. The point is that he was my president and I didn’t want to see any US president involved in this kind of misconduct, this degree and level and horror of abuse of power and criminality.”She adds: “I didn’t want to see it and it was awful to see and it was a very sobering moment. Nobody took any pleasure. This was not a gotcha! moment for Democrats. That’s the difference between then and now. People took impeachment seriously.”At first many Republicans had remained loyal to Nixon, denying that he was personally involved despite mounting evidence. But the “smoking gun tape” confirmed the allegation of the White House counsel, John Dean, that Nixon told aides to order the CIA to shut down the FBI investigation into the burglary.Holtzman adds: “That was a key part of the cover-up. The Republicans could no longer argue that there was no evidence that Nixon was oblivious to what was going on. Nixon was ordering the cover-up almost from day one.“At that point, all the what I call the ‘holdout Republicans’ said that they would support impeachment if it came to the House floor. In the end, the Republicans themselves were governed by the facts, although up to that point they would not accept anything less than a tape recording.”Three Republican leaders went to the White House to warn Nixon that there were no longer enough Republican votes to spare him impeachment. The following night, as crowds outside the White House gates chanted “jail to the chief”, Nixon announced his resignation in a nationally televised speech from the Oval Office that focused on the accomplishments of his presidency and contained no admission of guilt.On the morning of 9 August, a sweaty Nixon delivered an extemporaneous, grievance-filled speech to White House staff, some of whom broke down in tears. He said: “Always remember, others may hate you – but those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself.” The remark has been described by Woodward as “one of the most interesting and important moments in presidential history”.But Holtzman was unmoved. “This was not a Shakespearean tragedy for me. This was a man who seriously abused his power, fought his political enemies. For a man to say treat your enemies well, he’d stick the IRS on his political enemies to try to get them to have harassing audits. This is a man who wiretapped journalists he thought were leaking information.“This is a man who went after Daniel Ellsberg [the defence analyst who leaked the secret history of the Vietnam war known as the Pentagon Papers] by approving a break-in into his psychiatrist’s office. He never acknowledged his guilt. He never showed remorse. Saying you shouldn’t do something, that’s very nice to preach to others, but what about practising what you preach? That we didn’t see and we never had any acknowledgment of his flaws ever.”View image in fullscreenNixon gave a final victory sign on the White House South Lawn before a helicopter spirited him away. On taking the oath of office as the 38th president, Ford remarked that America’s “long national nightmare is over”. Weeks later, he granted a full and unconditional pardon to Nixon. Bernstein exclaimed to Woodward: “You’re not gonna believe it. The son of a bitch pardoned the son of a bitch!”Holtzman was incensed. At a hearing of the House judiciary committee, she questioned Ford about the pardon directly. The president insisted that a criminal indictment, trial and conviction would have diverted the attention of the White House, Congress and American people from the urgent problems they needed to solve at home and abroad.Fifty years later, Holtzman is still convinced that Ford got it wrong. “We did something at the House judiciary committee to hold the president accountable and set forth the basis for his accountability on a bipartisan basis and in a process that the public would understand.“Here you had a president who had said, ‘I’m not going to do anything right away’ but basically he acted within a month of the resignation, and where was the transparency? What were the grounds for this? Why would you do this? Let the system work.”The criminal justice system should not have been tampered with, she continues. “The special prosecutor should have been allowed to examine all the evidence to determine whether on a criminal basis it was justified to bring charges to the grand jury, to let the grand jury make its determination to bring the prosecution, to bring a trial if that was warranted, to see whether there would be a conviction.“To short-circuit the process was a gross political act and an abuse of power and raised the question which to this day has never been solved as to whether the pardon was part of a deal to get Nixon out of office to help the Republicans in the midterm elections. Do I know that was Ford’s motive? It could have been. It was obviously a potential motive for him.”Trump, facing federal criminal charges over his role in the 6 January 2021 insurrection, has floated the idea of pardoning himself as well as his supporters who attacked police and stormed the US Capitol. Holtzman says: “The blatant use of the pardon power in a political way is wrong.“It’s an abuse of power and shouldn’t happen, and a lot of thought has to be given to reforming how the pardon power is being used, because for Donald Trump to say that he’s going to pardon the people who attacked the Capitol on January 6 is beyond reprehensible.”She also rejects that notion that a Democratic president should consider pardoning Trump. “Pardons don’t create national unity. There was no serious division among the American people about the Nixon impeachment. It was overwhelmingly approved by the American people.“The idea that the country had to be brought together because Nixon was being removed from office is nonsense. The American people came together because they realised that more important than any president, whether Republican or Democrat, was preserving our constitution and the rule of law. We came together on that principle, not on the principle of a particular person.”View image in fullscreenFord went on to lose the 1976 election to the Democrat Jimmy Carter. “Ford was kicked out of office. He was not re-elected because of the pardon so how did that unify anybody? The pardon appeared to have been used to my mind as a blatant political means to get Nixon out of office.”Holtzman spent eight years in Congress, leading efforts to bring Nazi war criminals living in America to justice, and went on to serve as Brooklyn district attorney. But she has suffered her share of setbacks, coming within a percentage point of being New York’s first female senator in 1980, losing a Senate primary election in 1992 and being defeated after one term as New York City comptroller in a banking-related scandal.Her record as the youngest woman elected to Congress eventually fell in 2014 to a then 30-year-old Republican named Elise Stefanik. Two years ago Holtzman made an unsuccessful bid to return to the House in a newly drawn congressional district spanning parts of Brooklyn and Manhattan.But Biden’s withdrawal from this year’s White House race in favor of Kamala Harris raises the prospect that she may see a woman occupy the Oval Office in her lifetime. She muses: “More and more women are holding more and more important offices in this country, and slowly but surely the American people are recognizing that women can do a great job and some women can do a terrible job, just the way men can do a great job and some men can do a terrible job.“To exclude women from the presidency because they’re women is wrong, it’s bias, it’s depriving us of great talent. I feel very optimistic about Vice-President Harris’s campaign and about her possibility of success and it would be a great thing for this country. It’s another way that we could be a beacon in this world.” More

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      Far-right online attacks against Tim Walz focus on conspiracy theory

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      Just as he was officially announced on the ticket, Minnesota’s governor, Tim Walz, often lauded as the safest pick for Kamala Harris to make as a running mate, was already facing racist and nativist attacks from the online depths of the far right.In media speculation leading up to Harris’s potential pick, Walz, a midwesterner who once coached a high school football team, was seen as evening out the Californian vice-president’s candidacy for the White House.The thinking among pundits was that Walz, who is white and 60, was appealing to battleground states, namely Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – one of the keys to victory in the electoral college spread this November.But the far-right users of Telegram, Gab, 4chan and other adjacent social media sites frequently used to spread extremist propaganda have taken a different tack.The nexus of many of the early attacks have focused on the conspiracy theory that he changed the state flag of Minnesota to mimic a Somali flag.“Replaced Minnesota flag with Somali flag, loves loves loves Somalis moving into America by planeload,” said one anonymous post on the chatboard 4Chan, with an image of Walz at a press conference.“Timmy Somali changed the state flag to look African, lmao,” said another post on the same site, which was published following the news of Walz as Harris’s pick. “Dude is a fucking cuck. This is a worse VP pick than even Vance was.”This rhetoric stems from Walz unveiling the new Minnesota flag in December last year. The 1957 version was criticized for overtly depicting a Native American man being driven away from the land by threat of a rifle. The new design partly features a blue backdrop with a white star – an allusion to the official state motto “Star of the North” – something the Somali flag also happens to include.“Tim Walz is the perfect pick to sell you out to the hordes,” wrote one pro-Proud Boys channel on Telegram with more than 15,000 followers, putting a video of Walz and the new flag in the post.As the brutal civil war persisted into the 90s, Minnesota became a destination for many Somali immigrants, who established a rich and successful group of new Americans. Minnesota representative Ilhan Omar, who was born in Mogadishu, was part of that same wave of immigration fleeing the violence.But, of course, the more than 85,000 Somali Americans in the state of close to 7 million has become the racist fodder of neo-Nazis, nativists and far-right commentators of all types in recent years.“This is Minneapolis, Minnesota,” read one post with more than a thousand views on a neo-Nazi-sympathizing channel on Telegram, with photos of a vibrant Somali street festival in Minneapolis, not unlike annual Italian street festivals in every major US city. “This isn’t Mogadishu.”Mainstream Republicans have started adopting this racist invocation of Somalia when it comes to Walz. Stephen Miller, former senior adviser to Donald Trump, went on Fox News on Tuesday night to say the Democrat ticket will “turn the entire midwest into Mogadishu”.On Gab, a fringe and rightwing X-wannabe, an image showing a cartoon Harris and Walz carrying a Somali flag was making the rounds, while others largely focused on the Minnesota governor’s stewardship of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests in 2020, which first began in his state after the police killing of George Floyd.“Minneapolis before and after Governor Tim Walz allowed BLM to destroy it,” wrote one Gab user posting images claiming to show Minneapolis buildings that were once pristine before the protests.Walz’s midwestern, folksy appeal was undeniably a major reason Harris and her team took the decision to include him. He’s a counter to Donald Trump’s running mate: the Ohio senator JD Vance, who uses any public appearance to stress his working-class and Appalachian roots.Vance and the far-right congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who is an often antisemitic and racist mouthpiece for the extremist branches of the Republican party, immediately cited the BLM protests in their attacks on Walz.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionVance accused Walz of allowing “rioters to burn down Minneapolis” while Greene said he similarly did “nothing while Minneapolis burned”, telegraphing a surefire Republican attack line in the coming months.“The incoming rightwing assault on Walz will be pretty predictable,” said Amarnath Amarasingam, an extremism expert and professor at Queen’s University in Canada who has researched the rise of the far right since the Trump presidency.Amarasingam explained that there was the underlying racial component to Walz’s candidacy that was sure to inflame the far right and be an implicit attack against him in mainstream Republican circles.“American politics is so tribal now that the same reasons that make [Walz] attractive to the Harris campaign will be the same reasons he will be considered ‘un-American’ by the right.”Amarasingam also pointed out that beyond his track record on Covid, LGBTQ+ and trans rights will surely be topics of conversation.“The predictable culture war fault lines – immigration, equity, gender fluidity, race – will be trotted out as insults and accusations: he took too long to call in the national guard against BLM protests, his state was too restrictive during Covid and so on,” he said.“When there aren’t verifiable policy choices to attack, conspiracy theories will take their place – like the idea that he changed the state’s flag to resemble the Somali flag due to an immigrant takeover.”Another point of criticism on Walz that’s gaining momentum among Republicans is … tampons? Walz supported a law that went into effect in Minnesota this year, requiring tampons in both boys and girls public school bathrooms.The perhaps uninspired hashtag “TamponTim” trended on X among rightwing circles for most of Tuesday. On Gab, there’s a meme dubbing Walz “Tampon Tim” and shows a manipulated picture of him menstruating from his jeans.Karoline Leavitt, a Trump campaign spokesperson, wasted no time appearing on Fox News only hours after Walz was announced to criticize the vice-presidential pick and his legislative track record.“As a woman, I think there’s no greater threat to our health than leaders who support gender transition surgeries for young minors,” she said in an animated appearance, “who support putting tampons in men’s bathrooms in public schools.” More

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      Kamala Harris and Tim Walz inspire enthusiasm at Wisconsin rally: ‘I’m elated’

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      Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota’s governor, Tim Walz, continued their swing-state tour with a rally in rural Wisconsin on Wednesday.The rally, which followed a raucous event in Philadelphia, served as an opportunity for Harris to continue to introduce Walz, a formerly low-profile midwest governor, to Democrats in the critical swing state. Held in Eau Claire, a north-western Wisconsin city less than two hours from Minneapolis and St Paul, Minnesota, the rally drew attendees from both states.Walz spoke first, focusing on his midwestern background and noting he had family in the crowd. “Being a midwesterner, I know something about commitment to the people,” he said.He also spoke at length about his experience coaching football, teaching social studies and serving in the Minnesota National Guard, underscoring his role as a kind of ambassador to rural and working-class Americans for the Democratic party.And he directly took on Trump. “Don’t believe him when he plays dumb. He knows exactly what he’s talking about. He knows exactly what Project 2025 will do in restricting and taking our freedoms. He knows that it rigs the economy for the super rich if he gets a chance to go back to the White House. It will be far worse than it was four years ago.”Walz also revisited his support for and personal experience with IVF, the fertility treatment, which has become a contentious issue for Republicans after an Alabama court ruled that frozen embryos have personhood.The rally highlighted Harris’s focus on Wisconsin, where she held her first rally after Joe Biden announced the end of his bid for re-election. In 2016, Donald Trump won Wisconsin by about 20,000 votes, and Biden won the state in 2020 by a similar margin.Harris’s speech was similar to those at other recent campaign stops, with a focus on the future and Trump’s threat to democratic norms.“Donald Trump has openly vowed, if re-elected, he will be a dictator on day one, that he would weaponize the Department of Justice against his political enemies, that he would round up peaceful protesters and throw them out of our country, and even, quote, ‘terminate the United States constitution’,” she said.“Let us be clear, someone who suggests we should terminate the constitution of the United States should never again have a chance to stand behind the seal of the president of the United States.”Rallygoers were enthusiastic at seeing the duo at the event.“I’m elated,” said Lori Schlecht, a teacher from Minnesota who said she is excited about Walz given his background in public education – Walz was a public school teacher before he was elected to the US House of Representatives in 2006. “Minnesota is blessed to have him, and I’m glad to see him at the national level. He is authentic and real – he’ll get shit done.”Many Minnesota residents in attendance pointed to Walz’s down-to-earth manner as an asset for the Democratic party ticket.“Walz is my homeboy,” said Colin Mgam, who is 65 and retired and drove from St Paul for the rally. “He brings straight talk, and he’s going to do well,” Mgam added.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe indie folk band Bon Iver, whose lead singer is from Eau Claire and previously supported Bernie Sanders’ 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns, opened for Harris at the Wednesday event.Walz, who was not initially an obvious contender for Harris’s vice-presidential pick, garnered widespread attention within the party after giving a candid and upbeat interview on MSNBC’s Morning Joe in which he boosted Harris and wrote off Donald Trump’s running mate JD Vance as “weird”.The “weird” moment went viral, and Democratic party officials and politicians quickly seized on the term to dismiss the Republican presidential ticket as reactionary and out-of-touch with everyday Americans.Walz’s comments – and subsequent references to the “weirdness” of the Maga movement, including at the Wednesday rally – marked the beginning of a rhetorical shift for Democrats, with Harris reframing the election in more positive terms than the Biden campaign, which leaned heavily on grave warnings about Trump’s autocratic tendencies. Since ascending to the top of the ticket, Harris has instead emphasized a policy agenda with issues that are popular among Democratic voters, such as abortion rights, labor unions and the cost of childcare.Donald Trump has been quick to paint Walz, who has worked with progressive lawmakers in Minnesota to pass a raft of progressive laws – codifying the right to abortion, expanding protections for workers and establishing landmark voting rights legislation – as a member of the “radical left”, a line of attack that the former president will likely continue to push.But Walz pushed back against Trump on Wednesday. “This election is all about asking that question, which direction will this country go in? Donald Trump knows the direction he wants to take it. He wants to take us back.” More

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      Harris-Walz merch unites gen X dads – and Chappell Roan fans: ‘We’re not used to politicians making cool choices’

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      With less than 100 days to go until the election, Kamala Harris announced her VP pick – the avuncular Minnesota governor Tim Walz – and dropped a new official logo.Harris-Walz merchandise, including yard signs, T-shirts, and one much-memed camouflage printed hat, launched as soon as the current vice-president put Walz on her ticket on Tuesday. The logo looks simple, with some even calling it boring: tall, white, sans serif lettering spelling out the nominees’ last names.“The logo needs a little more [flair] to reflect the excitement of the base,” read one tweet posted to X. “Oh my god this is minimalist hell get me out of here,” said another.But, as Hunter Schwarz pointed out for Fast Company, others viewed the logo as historic, tracing its branding back to Shirley Chisholm’s 1972 presidential campaign. Chisholm, the first Black congresswoman and first Black woman to run for a major party’s nomination, used all-caps, sans serif lettering. (Harris took nods from Chisholm’s campaign design when running in 2019.)“The logo looks bold and strong, and the brilliance of it is that it doesn’t have to be clever,” said Ross Turner, a graphic designer who works on political campaigns.Turner noted that the Harris Walz design looks similar to Trump Vance signs, which also utilize an all-caps, sans serif font. “I initially thought, wow, Harris kind of dropped the ball, because this looks so much like the Trump logo,” Turner said. “Isn’t the goal to differentiate? But they didn’t have to differentiate with the logo, because Harris already does as a candidate. And [Republicans] can’t turn around and mock this logo, because then they’d have to do the same for Trump since it’s so similar.”View image in fullscreen“I like their lack of preciousness,” said Charles Nix, senior executive creative director of the typeface company Monotype. “The speed of this campaign and this design coming together demands a sort of truth. It doesn’t have a full year to be tested in focus groups. It speaks plainly and urgently.”“They’re clearly emphasizing Harris,” said Katherine Haenschen, an assistant professor of communications and political science at Northeastern University. “It’s a good, solid logo.”If the campaign’s logo is straightforward, its merch comes off as more playful. One $40 camo hat with Harris Walz embroidered in orange looks strikingly similar to a cap sold by the gen Z pop star Chappell Roan in support of her Midwest Princess tour.View image in fullscreenWalz, a game-hunting Minnesotan who signed gun control measures into law, was wearing a camo baseball cap when he got the call from Harris offering him the VP slot, and he’s worn camo in the past. But some online commentators are reading into the campaign’s cap, released Tuesday after a high-energy rally in Philadelphia, as a nod to Roan. The singer even posted a side-by-side of her merch with the Harris-Walz hat on X, writing: “is this real.”The cap, which the campaign called “the most iconic political hat in America”, can be interpreted as a rebuttal to Donald Trump’s red Maga option. The gen-X-dad styling might be seen as an attempt to appeal to middle American voters who might actually use it while hunting. “There’s a lot of connotations with camouflage print and preparing for battle, which I’m sure crossed the in-house design team’s mind, given how fraught the leadup to November is going to be,” said the fashion writer Freya Drohan. Fitting, too, as one of the Harris campaign’s slogans is “when we fight, we win”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionOne could even imagine coastal hypebeasts who have never held a gun in their lives wearing the hat: camo has emerged as one of 2024’s most unlikely fashion trends, seen on runways from Balenciaga to A$AP Rocky’s AWGE label.“This is the bushwick x los feliz unity that our nation needs,” wrote the comedian Desus Nice on X about the hat, citing two hip neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Los Angeles where it’s not uncommon to see people dressed in what can only be described as fish and game warden-chic.“I’m personally really encouraged that it seems like the campaign is listening to young voices,” said Ziad Ahmed, head of Next Gen, a gen Z marketing practice at United Talent Agency. “I think everyone can feel that energy across the internet right now. When we first saw the hat, we almost couldn’t believe our eyes, as we are so not used to our politicians actually making good, cool, smart choices.”Nate Jones, an executive at UTA Next Gen, added that he wanted to buy Harris merchandise after she announced her bid, but felt “quite disappointed” by the lineup. “I didn’t see anything I would actually wear, until this hat,” he said. “It’s simultaneously street style and gen X dad style.” Jones ordered the cap, which is expected to drop in early October. The Harris campaign told Teen Vogue it sold $1m worth of caps in less than 24 hours.Merch alone will not win an election, but the excitement around the hat reiterates how Harris’ presidential bid continues to liven up a once dreary election cycle. It’s also clear that Harris’s team has set its sights on delivering viral moments meant to thrill the very-online voting bloc.“It is my hope that those in power continue to pay attention to what young voters are saying across the internet,” Ahmed said. “Not just to draw inspiration for their next merch drop, but also to shape their policy platforms that will define our generation’s present as well as our future.” More

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      In choosing Tim Walz, Kamala Harris went for policies not electoral votes | John Zogby

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      Vice-President Kamala Harris has selected the Minnesota governor, Tim Walz, as her running mate and this big decision reflects more conventional history than inside-the-DC-beltway convention wisdom. While pundits focused mainly on which possible choice could help her ticket win a battleground state, their focus was on either Governor Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania (19 electoral votes) or Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona (11 electoral votes). In this hotly competitive race, either selection made good sense in the scramble for a majority of the electoral college.But we have to go back to 1960 when the young Massachusetts senator John Kennedy picked the Texas senator and majority leader, Lyndon Johnson, to be his running mate to find the last time selecting a candidate who actually brought a state with him was the dominant concern. Johnson and Kennedy hated each other but the ticket carried Texas, so who cared?Since that time, other factors were in the ascendance. The very conservative governor of California Ronald Reagan opted for the more moderate, establishment, comfortable George HW Bush in 1980. Bush brought credibility and possibly modulation. A decade later, after Reagan and Bush were the two oldest men ever to serve in the White House, 46-year-old Bill Clinton chose 44-year-old Al Gore.Gore brought much-needed Washington experience, even more intellectual heft, and above all the image of youthful vigor to promote the mantra of change. In one of their first public appearances together, Clinton and Gore got off the campaign bus and played catch with a football, a powerful image of a new boomer generation ready to go.In 2000, Governor George W Bush, a successful and moderate Texas governor of Texas, needed an insider with gravitas and knowledge of the workings inside the nation’s capital. Actually, Dick Cheney, who Bush had appointed to conduct a vice-presidential search, chose himself.And eight years later, Senator Barack Obama, barely in the US Senate, was not thinking of Joe Biden’s state of Delaware with only three (comfortably Democratic) electoral voters. Rather, Biden brought decades of legislative and foreign policy experience, the wisdom of age, and hardworking ethnic working-class roots to the table.So, Governor Walz is much more than the man from Minnesota (10 electoral votes). Actually, he was born in rural Nebraska, taught high school and coached football in a small town, has served almost six terms in the House of Representatives and is into his second term as governor. He is wildly popular among his fellow Democratic governors who selected him to be their leader. He has lived and led since 1996 in Mankato, Minnesota, population 45,000. Walz has been on the inside but more significantly he has never left the outside. Walz is seen as an appealing option for independents and moderate Democrats as a working-class politician with a rural background, as well as a favorite among the progressive wing of the Democratic party who were not keen on either Shapiro or Kelly.Before running for office, Walz, a graduate of a state college in Nebraska, served in the army national guard. He worked as a teacher, first on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, then in China and later as a high school teacher in Mankato, Minnesota, south of Minneapolis. As a teacher, he was assigned the duty of supervising the cafeteria during lunch. (I suppose he can do anything!)As governor, he has passed tuition-free meals at participating state universities, enshrined abortion rights into state law, provided protections for gender-affirming healthcare, signed a bill last May expanding voting rights in Minnesota for formerly incarcerated residents, and in 2020, oversaw the state’s response to both the Covid-19 pandemic and police brutality protests in the wake of George Floyd’s death at the hands of police.He offers a combination of a rural/small-town family man, rooted in traditional values, while also pushing through legislative programs that are near-and-dear to the progressive base of the party. While his views on the war in Gaza are not out of step with mainstream congressional Democrats, it is notable that he expressed support for and understanding of the college demonstrators’ empathy for the suffering victims of the Gaza war.By selecting Walz, the vice-president has accomplished a few important things. First, she has chosen someone from and of the midwest and rural America, moving away from the big city/coastal elitism that the party has come to represent. Second, she has declared her independence from the Biden administration’s premise of Israel first and always as Middle Eastern policy. And third, she has chosen someone who is no “hillbilly” with fluid values, but an authentic midwesterner. We now have a possible injection of “prairie progressivism” v “hillbilly/Mar-a-Lago populism”. This will be no small debate.

      John Zogby is senior partner at John Zogby Strategies and author of Beyond the Horse Race: How to Read Polls and Why We Should More

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      US election live updates: Kamala Harris and Tim Walz hit the campaign trail in Pennsylvania

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      Kamala Harris introduced her running mate, Minnesota governor Tim Walz, to supporters at a packed, energetic rally at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.Harris sought to define Walz foremost as a teacher, veteran and football coach.Walz focused on a unifying, future-focused message, and attacked the Trump-Vance ticket with a focus on reproductive rights and other freedoms.Meanwhile Josh Shapiro, who had been a vice-presidential contender, still made his mark.Read the key takeaways here.Here are some images from the Harris/Walz campaign rally in Philadelphia last night.Kamala Harris introduced her running mate Tim Walz as “the kind of vice-president America deserves” at a raucous rally in Philadelphia on Tuesday that showcased Democratic unity and enthusiasm for the party’s presidential ticket ahead of the November election.Casting their campaign as a “fight for the future”, Harris and Walz were repeatedly interrupted by applause and cheering as they addressed thousands of battleground-state voters wearing bracelets that twinkled red, white and blue at Temple University’s Liacouras Center – a crowd Harris’s team said was its largest to date.“Thank you for bringing back the joy,” a beaming Walz told Harris after she debuted the little-known Minnesota governor as a former social studies teacher, high school football coach and a National Guard veteran.“We’ve got 91 days,” he declared. “My God, that’s easy. We’ll sleep when we’re dead.”Read the full story here. More

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      ‘Let’s kick ass!’: Hollywood celebrities share their support of Tim Walz

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      Hollywood figures, including Julianne Moore and Rob Reiner, have shared their support for Kamala Harris’s vice-presidential pick, Tim Walz.The 60-year-old Minnesota governor was announced as the running mate of Harris, the presumptive Democratic candidate for president, on Tuesday after weeks of speculation.The decision was praised on social media by stars such as Cynthia Nixon, best known for her role in Sex and the City and her unsuccessful campaign to be governor of New York. “I’m Walzing on air,” she wrote while thanking Harris.Film-maker and Democratic fundraiser Rob Reiner, who had called on Joe Biden to step down in early July, reposted a montage of Walz and then later wrote: “Harris/Walz. Let’s kick ass!”Paul Feig, director of Bridesmaids and The Heat, also shared his support, writing that he was “so happy” about the decision while sharing his Saturday Night Live dream casting. “If only Chris Farley was still around to play him opposite Maya Rudolph’s Kamala,” he wrote.Acclaimed documentary film-maker Ken Burns, who has previously warned against Donald Trump, reposted a tweet from Walz, adding his support. “You can’t go wrong with a social studies teacher,” he wrote. “Excited to have @Tim_Walz on the ticket. Good to have someone who knows American history.”Oscar winner Jamie Lee Curtis, who thanked the president for his “leadership, grace under pressure, strength and resilience” after he withdrew from the race, shared a picture of Harris and Walz, with the tagline: “LET’S GO AMERICA!” The same image was also shared by fellow Oscar winner Julianne Moore who wrote: “This is such exciting news! I cannot wait to vote for this ticket.”John Cusack, who had called for Biden to step down, expressed confidence over the decision in a post. “It’s no absolute guarantee dems win – but absolutely gives us the best chance,” he wrote.Wonder Woman actor Lynda Carter referred to Walz as “a champion who understands America” while Abbott Elementary star Sheryl Lee Ralph called him “an honest, forthright family man with morals and true values”.In a statement announcing Walz as her choice, Harris wrote: “As a governor, a coach, a teacher and a veteran, he’s delivered for working families like his. We are going to build a great partnership.” More