By Dave Andrusko
When pro-abortion Vice President Kamala Harris went fishing for a running mate, Minnesotaâs pro-abortion Tim Walz was well down the list, according to a ton of stories. It seemed as if the entire blogosphere wanted Pennsylvaniaâs popular Gov. Josh Shapiro but for a myriad of reasons Harris selected Walz.
Initially there was deep skepticism followed by a 180 degree shift to stories about how Walz was picked for his âEveryman aesthetic and fluency in retail politics,â Elaine Godfrey writes. âAnd so far, the affable former high-school football coach and hype man for Menards has mostly received glowing reviews.â [Menards is a big box home improvement chain, sort of like Home Depot.]
Then came the debate against pro-life Sen J.D. Vance which was almost universally interpreted as a disaster for  âCoach Walz.â (He was actually an assistant volunteer coach). He flubbed questions he knew would be asked even by the friendly moderators from CBS News.
Critics piled like they were loading lumber at Menards.
Coming from the right, Joe Concha uses Walzâs âanswer to the question about why heâs claimed to be in Hong Kong during the Tiananmen Square protests when he was actually in Nebraskaâ to illustrate his verbal clumsiness and dishonesty:
âI will be the first to tell you I have poured my heart into my community. Iâve tried to do the best I can, but Iâve not been perfect,â he said. âAnd Iâm a knucklehead at times, but itâs always been about that.â
How comforting to know a self-described knucklehead could be one heartbeat away from controlling the nuclear codes.Â
This filibuster of an answer went on for a full two minutes without addressing why he had lied about being in China at that critical moment, prompting co-moderator Margaret Brennan to press him for an actual response.Â
âGovernor, just to follow up on that, the question was, can you explain the discrepancy?â she asked.Â
âNo,â he said. âAll I said on this was . . . I got there that summer and misspoke on this, so I will just, thatâs what Iâve said.âÂ
Ah, he misspoke.
Godfrey, coming from the Left, tells us
And Walzâs failure to provide a coherent, succinct correction for an entirely predictable inquiry about one      of his flubs suggests ill-preparedness for a spotlight that is only going to get brighterâand harsherâin the weeks to come.
And Cocha finished with this zinger:
Harris canât win without the Rust Belt, hence Walzâs berth on the ticket â even though she had the option of popular Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro.Â
But a pre-debate New York Times/Siena poll deflated that expectation: Walz, it turns out, is struggling in the heartland.
Heâs seen favorably by just 44% of voters in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, for example; in   Ohio, that number drops to 41%.
And men havenât flocked to his side: A CBS poll taken before the debate found that Walz is seen favorably by 58% percent of women, but only 48% of men.Â
Even Politico, essentially a mouthpiece for Democrats, hammered Walz for his ineptitude []. They went all the topics that Walz had âmisspokenâ about. It was not a pretty picture for âCoach Walz.â
Itâs too late to unload Walz and in all likelihood we wonât hear much more from him. That and the near silence from Harris looks awful in comparison to the talk-to-anyone approach of former President Donald Trump and Vance.
HotAirâs David Strom summarized the results of Walzâs âmisstatementsâ (Iâm trying to be generous.)
There is another, underlying problem. The Democrats keep hitting on Trump and Vance as “liars,” which, while unfair, has been working. Now that Tim Walz is revealed to be a serial liar and J.D. Vance looked great on stage, that dog won’t hunt.Â
