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Vice President candidate Kamala Harris, Tim Walz, revived his football training in an impassioned speech on Wednesday night (21) when he accepted the Democratic nomination at the party’s convention in Chicago.
“We are on the attack, and we need the ball,” he said. “We have the right team. Kamala is tough, experienced and ready. Our job now is to go to the trenches,” he said, “coach! Coach! Coach!” —technician, in Portuguese.
“We have 76 days [até a eleição]. This is nothing. You can sleep when you’re dead,” he said, repeating a phrase that became his trademark in the campaign.
The tone and idea of the speech, in a way, complements Kamala’s statement that they are the worst two in the presidential race. Seeing himself as the underdog of the championship, Walz invested in motivating his team.
The governor of Minnesota presented himself on the third night of the convention as a man from a small town in Nebraska, born in a middle-class family, who built his career as a military man and a high school teacher – in short, an everyman. , or “normal”, compared to the strange label given to opponents Donald Trump and JD Vance.
“There were 24 people in my high school class, and none of them went to Yale,” he said, taking a dig at the Republican candidate for vice president, who sells himself as a man from the countryside.
Walz recalled his remarkable entry into politics, being elected as a congressman in a rural Minnesota district that had not elected a Democrat in years. “I was a high school teacher, with two young children, no money and no political experience, running in a deeply Republican district. But you know what? Don’t underestimate a public school teacher,” he said, to applause. high
The Democrat quickly went over the main points of his biography: he pointed out that he was a moderate in Congress who “learned to negotiate with the other side without compromising his values” and a governor who prioritized the middle class with tax cuts, investments in housing, reducing the price of medicines, and taking free breakfast and lunch in all schools.
“While other states were banning books, we were banning hunger,” he said. The strong phrase provoked the expected response: the public praised it.
Playing the role of deputy, Walz launched more direct attacks on his opponents, accusing them of trying to cut social programs. Recalling his personal experience with infertility treatments, he said that his state is to protect reproductive freedom. “We respect our neighbors and their personal preferences, even if we don’t share the same preferences, our rule is: mind your own business.”
The governor followed Kamala’s campaign playbook, which tries to capture a key term in American politics historically associated with Republicans: freedom.
“When Republicans use the word freedom, they mean the freedom for the government to invade your doctor’s office, to take advantage of consumers. But we Democrats want freedom to build a better life for you and them those you love.” ” he said. “Freedom for your child to go to school without worrying about getting shot in the hall.”
The last sentence touches on a central point of Kamala’s platform: fighting gun violence. Trump used this to attack the Democrats, as evidence of the radicalism of the Democrats and his alleged opposition to the second amendment of the constitution, which guarantees the right to keep and bear arms in the USA.
Walz, who is proud to be a hunter and has weapons, is a way of trying to offer a kind of antidote to this discourse.
The deputy candidate did not fail to address one of Trump’s main weaknesses: his involvement with the radical non-public Project 2025, a government plan drawn up by names and organizations close to the former president, and which he himself tries to to separate from each other.
“Trump and Vance spend time saying that they have nothing to do with this. But I was a football coach, I know that when people invest in putting together a tactical scheme, they will use it,” he said. warning.
“They are warning us that the next four years are going to be much worse,” he said. “But I am ready to turn the page on these guys. Repeat after me: we will not go back”, he concluded, making thousands of people what became a rallying cry for the campaign again.
Before Walz took the stage, Benjamin Ingman, a former student of Walz’s, gave a speech introducing his former teacher. He asked on stage the players of the high school football team that Walz coached, which won an unprecedented championship under his leadership.
Walz also presented his credentials as a defender of reproductive rights – Minnesota was the first state to guarantee the right to abortion after its repeal from the Federal Constitution.
The governor spoke about his personal experience with the need to undergo fertility treatment, accusing Republicans of trying to limit this right – some conservative groups are against in vitro fertilization.
While engaged in this obstruction, the Democrats threw pro-abortion activists for their third night.
“Donald Trump wants women to have less freedom and to make pregnancy more dangerous. There is no way that Trump and Vance are more qualified than doctors and women to make these decisions. We have made a decision,” said Alexis McGill Johnson, president of the Fund for Action by Planned Parenthood, a reproductive health network that offers, among other services, abortion.
“When we vote on abortion, we win,” said Minin Timmaraju, president of Reproductive Freedom for All.
Walz’s support for LGBTQIA+ rights was also highlighted by the selection of speakers for the evening. “Donald Trump wants to destroy us. He will ban our health care, destroy our marriages. Bury our stories,” said Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign.
“Tim and Kamala are people who come from the people and work for the people,” says Marta Nieves, 87. As we were talking, two people interrupted us to ask where she got the camouflage hat with the “Harris Walz” names him. – one of the hottest items of the convention, is a reference to the step-uncle’s wardrobe.
Nieves is a delegate from Nebraska, the birthplace of the Minnesota governor. In the electoral college system of the American race, the state is strategic: only it and Maine provide for the possibility of dividing delegates between the two candidates.
Nebraska is overwhelmingly Republican, but Democrats have a chance to win in one area, the urban core of Omaha. A race is expected to be so tight that even this single vote is being fought for. Last week, Walz was campaigning there.
Humor is the most visible new feature of Kamala’s campaign compared to Biden. While the president painted Trump as a threat to democracy, exaggerating it, the vice president chose to tone it down, mocking it. Walz’s choice shows the full strength of this bet.
So far, the strategy seems to be working. The governor is rated higher than his Republican counterpart, shows an AP-Norc survey released next Wednesday. According to the survey, 36% of Americans have a positive view of the Democrat, and, in the case of Vance, this percentage drops to 27%.
The main contrast, therefore, is the negative lake: Walz is seen badly 25%, and vice president Trump, 44%.
However, like Vance, Kamala’s running mate remains relatively unknown: 4 in 10 Americans say they don’t know enough about them to form an opinion.
“Tim understands that we are not running a left or right country or state. Tim won his first election recognizing that our job is to move people into the future, no matter how much Donald Trump tries to move us into in the past,” said the governor of Kentucky – defeated by Walz in the race for vice president – this Wednesday morning.
Walz spoke after a performance by musicians John Legend and Sheila E., during prime time of the convention – the extension between 8 pm and 10 pm local time – presented by actress and producer Mindy Kaling. On the same night there was a Stevie Wonder concert and a surprise appearance by Oprah Winfrey, who stole the show.
Among the list of political celebrities, former president Bill Clinton, former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, governors Josh Shapiro and Wes Moore, and Senator Amy Klobuchar were scheduled for the penultimate day of the convention.
The star-studded program follows a night out the night before, when DJ presided over the usually monotonous voting process for each state delegation on the party’s candidate for President and Vice President. Rapper Lil Jon, director Spike Lee and actress Eva Longoria came on the block.
Kamala’s campaign quickly shared video montages from the party and the traditional version of the vote that took place at the Republican convention last month.
Rumors of surprise appearances from other celebrities circulate through the halls of the United Center, which hosts the convention. The hottest names are Beyoncé, singer of Kamala’s theme song, “Freedom”, and Taylor Swift, who finished her European tour on Tuesday.
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