Though an ordinary person
WHEN the sixty-year-old Tim Walz, Governor of the American state of Minnesota, was named as the vice-presidential running mate of the Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, a reputed national newspaper headlined the news item as ‘Extraordinarily Ordinary: Tim Walz’s path to prominence.
Selection by Harris offers a contrast on the ballot’. True, indeed, the news story elaborated further saying that ‘Walz belongs to a unique category of Americans who is not many things that Kamala Harris is… Tim Walz never attended an Ivye League school. He never wrote a political memoir…never showed much interest in a career in politics… and now as Kamala Harris’s running mate, had not devoted his life to reaching this pinnacle.’
Meanwhile, yet another well-known daily commented Walz: ‘Tim Walz is a car guy – and works on his own 1979 scout SUV, will it help him with voters?’ However, being a high school teacher, a football coach, US army national guard for 24 long years, who made several careers. Walz, though an ordinary person, a state-level politician, albeit commanding tremendous respect was elected governor of Minnesota and re-elected two times, but still remained comparatively unknown nationally. He was elected the member of the US House of Representatives and re-elected five times on that position.
Tim Walz, born in a small town of the state of Arkansas, worked in tanning bed factory. Walz rose steadily from rather low positions, and had since won unparallelled laurels all along, impressed Kamala Harris’s choice as her vice-presidential running-mate. Though Kamala Harris had a wider scope to pick her vice president from half a dozen party’s distinguished state governors, she chose Tim Walz because several electoral considerations and political reasons. Walz’s selection was also influenced by his being a ‘person of the soil and his closeness to farming, turkey hunting, local high school football coaching, and with his broad smile and unpolished style.’
In a recent television, Tim Walz passionately outlined his public concern thus: “The one thing I’ll never do is I’ll never demean another member’s service in any way. I never have, and I never will. I’ve been very public. I think they can see my students come out, former folks I’ve served with, and they do.
They vouch for me. I certainly own my mistakes when I make them.’’ Meanwhile, in an encounter with an NBC television correspondent, Tim had said that “when Republicans use the word ‘freedom’, they mean that the government should be free to invade your doctor’s office, corporations free to pollute your air and water, and banks free to take advantage of customers.” But when we Democrats talk about freedom, we mean…freedom to make your own health care decisions, your kids’ freedom to go to school without worrying about being shot dead in the hall…We’re not going back to Trump days…
We’re not going back…we’ve got something better to serve the people...He said when other people in the country were banning books, were banning hunger.’’
In humble manner, whenever he concludes his public speeches, he does with his both hands folded…in a la namaste style.
By: MR. Dua, former professor-head, journalism department, Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC), New
Delhi, and an ex-faculty Journalism, California State University, US.
