Well, he didn’t just crawl out of a hole, he has a record. The article is making the claim that he has the potential to bring together different elements of the democratic party, which ultimately is the party of everyone else that isn’t voting Trump. This is a big tent with a lot of perspectives, and while democrats are largely united against Trump, that doesn’t inherently mean they’re just as united behind the candidate (as we just saw), and those kind of things are ripe for Republicans to pick at and promote infighting.
Big news sites will do things like write up a story announcing a presidential win for each of the candidates, then only publish the one that matters after the election. This way they can have a story on the front page within minutes (seconds these days) of having official results.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Vox had 1 of these lined up for each of the likely VP picks. If not that, it certainly wouldn’t be unusual for a journalist to do their homework on all of the candidates and to have the rough outline and some key facts ready to go for each. If you’ve already done most of the research, assembling the final story shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours.
Walz has been known to be on the shortlist for at least a week, probably longer. They probably had articles like this in the pipeline for all the likely candidates.
The campaign worked with news outlets and let them write the articles, under what’s often called an embargo. Basically, in exchange for holding the story until it’s announced, the journalists can write the story ahead of time.
Source: dated a girl who worked in PR and a girl who was in media relations for a large company
I think that’s a pretty simplistic take considering we just swapped our candidate less than 6 months before the election. I agree with the article’s take that Walz has potential to unify the differing democratic coalitions, and don’t see any evidence of your claim.
Walz’s elevation earns the left a big victory. Yet because Walz himself isn’t of the left, the pick seems intended to serve a unifying purpose: a candidate who appeals to all different stripes of Democrats for different reasons. The fact that Democrats across the political spectrum seem thrilled by the pick — with effusive support coming from people ranging from Sen. Joe Manchin (WV) to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY) — seems to validate the theory.
It’s important to be clear: The VP selection matters way less for elections than people think. It’s much more important to select a potential president than an optimal running mate.
But you can see why Harris sees picking Walz as smart politics. It allows her to simultaneously hand the left a win without necessarily tacking left — potentially keeping her coalition united even as she works to win over the general election’s decisive centrists.
I think its important to recognize the value this VP pick can bring, and I’ve not known vox to try to suggest something like that without reason.
Edit: I’m also going to add that your reply is a disingenuous attempt to falsely turn this into a binary unified or not unified condition, not that the article is making such a claim. I entirely reject your statement.
Just wondering how the heck Walz can be considered “not of the left.” Looking at his accomplishments with universal background checks, free school lunch etc it seems he’s accomplished more left leaning goals than 99% of his colleagues
Certainly from a mainstream political standpoint he is generally viewed as on the “left”, i.e. a progressive liberal. However, the writer is apparently using the term ‘leftists’ to mean socialists or, at the very least, left-wing “radicals”.
His stance of Israel is really what will be the clincher for leftists, as is the case with Harris. On the plus side, they are both taking a softer line in terms of how they discuss the genocide in public, but of course neither of them would ever utter the phrase with relation to the Palestinians – that would be too radical.
Therefore, there’s a lot of doubt as to whether either of them will break from Biden’s policy of continuing to send bombs and military hardware to Israel, as both are apparently very much in the “Israel has the right to defend itself” camp.
The author is making a distinction between progressive and leftist, and this interpretation may vary from reader to reader, considering in many ways the two views share many similarities. I personally have no issue with the classification, calling his accomplishments progressive or leftist makes little difference to me, but it could be viewed differently by others who may have drawn a line between the two labels. Manchin and AOC rallying behind Walz does appear to lend credence to the idea that he could be a unifying force.
I read your comment after the person you were replying to had deleted their comment. So I don’t even know what you’re talking about. But imma upvote you anyway because your comment is still awesome.
Might encourage a few of them to donate a little more. Actually no, they will just create a new business entity and funnel the funds there under another name
Yeah, it doesn’t get much better. Silver’s great when it’s just about numbers, but less so when it’s slightly more intangible. This column might be the peak example.
Shapiro has Israel baggage that I am so glad I don't have to hear about online for the next forever. Kelly had a messy divorce that I'm sure nobody wants to have dredged up. Walz seems relatable to a great number of people.
Shapiro’s Israel issue would have been a toss-up issue. Some independents wanted him to be very pro-Israel, others no so much. Probably wouldn’t have made a huge difference.
On the other hand, might have made a difference in Michigan among the large muslim minority who may not have come out to vote.
I really just hope Walz is not going to be another Kaine.
Okay, but lots of Democrats won’t vote for a pro-genocide administration. Someone who volunteered to be a soldier for their regime would have been seen as proof to them that Kamala was just as bad as Biden on Israel.
I remember listening to a podcast they would make, a lady and a guy and Nate Silver. I think it’s that podcast that makes me not really like him or his ideas aside from the numbers and the team he surrounds himself with. I look at 538 and I trust it for the most part but if it has Silver attached to it, I think of it as editorial
Vox - News Source Context (Click to view Full Report)Information for Vox:
> MBFC: Left - Credibility: High - Factual Reporting: High - United States of America
> Wikipedia about this source