CHRIS CRUCIAL: Can we *finally* admit Tim Walz was a bad VP pick? 😲

PLUS: The DNC Chair election is set! ✅

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1. Tim Walz was a dud

The 2024 election ended three weeks ago today. I think it’s now safe to say this: Tim Walz was not a good vice presidential pick by Kamala Harris.

Before you yell at me [ducks], let me say two things:

1. Tim Walz did not lose Harris the race (or even close to it)

2. Picking Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, who I clearly stated was the choice I thought made the most sense, would not have won Harris the presidency — or even Pennsylvania.

Ok. We all clear on that? Good? Good!

Now, let’s have an honest conversation about Walz — and the broader Harris’ VP-picking process.

Walz, I genuinely believe, wound up as Harris’ VP because of a single interview he did with MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” in late July in which he described Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance as “weird.”

That simple description of Trump, Vance and their ilk went viral. It was, for Democrats, the perfect encapsulation of what they had long believed about Trump and Trumpism. It distilled it all into a single, utterly catchy word.

Here’s the Associated Press in early August on the virality — and the popularity — of Walz’s “weird” attack:

The message started with news interviews and eventually spread like wildfire across social media with the help of young Americans. The simple terminology of labeling the other side as “weird” or “odd” is not revolutionary or sophisticated in American politics but represents a new framing for Democrats who have spent the last eight years trying to defeat Trump and Trumpism by personifying him as the greatest threat to democracy.

How did this happen? Because in politics, like in life, timing is everything.

Consider where Democrats were when Walz initially made the “weird” comment on the July 23.

Joe Biden had dropped out of the race two days earlier — after weeks of Democratic hand-wringing about his potential to not just lose the White House but sink the entire party because of his disastrous debate performance.

It was only 10 days removed from the first assassination attempt against Donald Trump — and less than a week after a triumphant Republican National Convention that had seemed to cement the idea that Trump was going to win this thing.

Democrats were struggling. They had NO idea a) whether Harris was the right answer as a candidate b) what the message should be against Trump and c) whether the race was winnable.

Enter Walz and “weird.” Suddenly, Democrats had something to rally around. These guys WERE weird! And Walz was the perfect vessel — a plain-spoken, Midwestern governor who loved football!!! Let’s see Trump try to call him a coastal liberal!

Remember this too: Harris, because she was stepping in as a last-minute replacement for Biden, had an incredibly compressed timeline to pick a VP. It was 16 days from Biden’s decision to Harris announcing Walz as the pick. Sixteen days!

Momentum always matters in VP picks but it mattered even more in such a short selection window. Walz was the hot thing in Democratic politics for the two weeks when Harris needed to pick a running mate. And so she picked him.

To be clear: I think Harris genuinely liked Walz and felt a rapport with him. And that she and her strategists convinced themselves that Walz’s “big dad energy” might help her appeal to critical voters in the upper Midwest.

But, without “weird,” Walz is never on her radar. Period.

Looking at the general election campaign, it’s very hard to see where Walz helped — even in marginal ways.

I suppose you could make a case that the apparent chemistry between Harris-Walz in their initial appearances together boosted Democratic excitement for the ticket.

But, like, would Shapiro have generated a lot less excitement? Or Andy Beshear? Or, really, any other running mate Harris chose?

I don’t think so? It seems to me that Democrats were SO excited that Biden wasn’t their nominee that Harris + anyone would have generated lots and lots of enthusiasm.

And, while it’s unrealistic to blame Harris’ losses in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania on Walz, I do distinctly recall lots and lots of people making the case here and elsewhere that the Minnesota governor was just the sort of pick that would help Harris relate to voters in those critical Blue Wall states.

Well, that didn’t work. In fact, Harris won Minnesota — Walz’s home state — by only four points, down from the 7-point margin Joe Biden had in the state in 2020. And, as conservatives gleefully noted, the Harris-Walz ticket even lost the governor’s home county.

And then there’s this: Walz’s profile got lower and lower as the campaign went along. Yes, he did rallies in swing states and the like. But by the end of the race, Walz was effectively a nonentity.

Did this have to do with his very shaky debate performance? Or the questions raised about his recollections of his past? We may never know for sure but I can’t imagine any of that inspired much confidence in the Harris inner circle.

Want a visual of Walz’s disappearing act? Here’s a year’s worth of Google searches for Walz:

By contrast, while Vance had a VERY rocky start as Trump’s VP pick, the Ohio Senator did ultimately turn into a pretty good TV surrogate for the campaign — especially with the mainstream media, which the former president largely ignored.

I am going to say this one more time: I DO NOT think Walz was why Harris lost. (Or that Vance was why Trump won!)

But, I also think that Walz was a mediocre pick based, largely, on a viral moment. And with hindsight being 20-20 there were clearly better VP picks available to Harris.

2. Circle February 1 on your calendar! 📅

The first big moment for the rebirth/rejiggering/renaissance of the Democratic party will come on February 1 when the Democratic National Committee will choose its next leader.

Current DNC Chair Jaime Harrison will not seek a second term, a decision mostly made for him by Vice President Kamala Harris’ loss to Donald Trump earlier this month.

At the moment, there are only two announced candidates in the race: Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley and Minnesota Democratic party chairman Ken Martin.

But most people believe the field will grow. At the moment, all eyes are on Rahm Emanuel, who is currently the Ambassador of Japan. And Emanuel is absolutely considering the gig.

“First come home second talk and listen to folks at home about best way to serve and build what we care about,” he recently texted the Chicago Sun-Times about his future.

The DNC is expected to hold four candidate forums for its 448 voting members between now and February 1.

Aside from Emanuel, the other name most often mentioned as a possible candidate is Wisconsin Democratic party chair Ben Wikler. Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin endorsed Wikler for the job in a column posted Tuesday — calling him the “obvious choice.”

Chuck Rocha, a prominent liberal political strategist who worked for Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign, has also suggested he might run for the DNC job. Rocha told CBS News recently that he was waiting to see “if there's a better candidate that really stands for what I want to see done with the party.”

3. Donald Trump ❤️’s the NYT

On Monday night, Donald Trump posted one of this regular screeds about how terrible the New York Times is.

Don’t believe a word of it. Trump cares more about the Times (and what the Times thinks of him) than ANY modern president — and it’s not close.

I made a video on my YouTube channel documenting his obsession with the NYT over the years. Subscribe!

NOTABLE QUOTABLE

“What I worry about is something where the way everyone’s mind works is they want a discrete, elegant, one-to-two sentence thing they can say during the holidays to sound smart about politics.” — Hawaii Sen. Brian Schatz on what went wrong for Democrats in 2024

ONE GOOD CHART

The comprehensive nature of Donald Trump’s performance in 2024 (versus how he ran in 2020) is still remarkable to me. This chart does a good job of getting at that reality:

SONG OF THE DAY

In advance of the Thanksgiving festivities on Thursday, I was scanning the Internet for a good playlist of fall/thankful/autumnal tunes. Enter this awesome one from NPR. Love it — especially “Space and Time” by the criminally-underrated Tyler Childers.

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