The BDN Opinion section operates independently and does not set news policies or contribute to reporting or editing articles elsewhere in the newspaper or on bangordailynews.com
Susan Young is the Bangor Daily News opinion editor.
I’ll admit it, when I heard presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris had chosen Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate, my first reaction was “he’s boring.” My second reaction was that he is old.
I was wrong on both counts.
Walz is 60, but his head of white hair makes him look older to me. As someone who is nearing 60 and whose hair is turning increasingly white, I should know better than to so quickly judge someone’s age.
The “boring” assessment is more complex.
Walz is a middle-age white guy, not exciting but predictable given the perceived need to balance a presidential ticket.
He is boring in the sense that he doesn’t have any apparent scandals, although the timing of his departure from his long service in the Army National Guard raises legitimate questions. Walz also isn’t prone to saying outrageous, or offensive things.
He is a former social studies teacher, high school football coach and faculty advisor to the Gay-Straight Alliance. He’s been married for 30 years and he and his wife have two children.
Maybe that’s boring. Maybe it’s all American, in the Hallmark movie sense.
Walz served six terms in Congress, getting high marks for his bipartisanship.
As governor, Walz worked with a small Democratic majority in the Minnesota Legislature to enact numerous reforms that have been labeled progressive. He championed and signed state budget bills in 2023 that included funding for free school meals for all Minnesota public school students, free college tuition for low-income students, and created a paid family and medical leave program.
Last year, Walz, a gun owner and former member of the NRA, signed gun control legislation that included universal background checks and a red flag law.
He signed laws to codify stronger protections for reproductive health and for its providers.
Similar versions of many of these policies were pushed for and signed into law by Gov. Janet Mills, also a Democrat. Last I checked, Maine hasn’t turned into a far-left hellscape because fewer children go hungry and fewer people worry about being able to access reproductive health services. Or because more Mainers can attend community college for free to gain job training and other skills, or because more Mainers can take paid time off to care for a new baby or sick loved one.
In the next few months, we can expect to hear a lot of criticism of Walz, and Harris, as extremists. But, I don’t see empowering and supporting people as extreme. It just seems like the right thing to do.
So, I’ll take the vice presidential candidate who wants children fed and trusts women to make their own health care decisions over the one (J.D. Vance) who demeans women without children and supports cruelly strict limits on abortion. I’ll take the vice presidential candidate who is thoughtful and willing to change his stance on guns after a horrific tragedy over the one who downplays gun violence and parrots NRA talking points.
In other words, I’ll take the affable midwestern dad who worked as a teacher and respects other people over the mean finance bro who denigrates others.
And, at the top of the presidential ticket, I’ll take the former prosecutor and U.S. senator with the supposedly weird laugh over the bullying, twice impeached, convicted felon who still tells lies about a “stolen election” and wants to remake America’s government to give himself more power.
Boring, it turns out, is better than divisive and demeaning.
