Coach Walz steals the show from Oprah and Stevie Wonder

Vice presidential nominee Tim Walz walking onstage at the Democratic National Convention

Aug. 22, 2024 Updated 7:56 AM PT

CHICAGO — Democrats turned up the wattage at their convention Wednesday, rolling out celebrities including Stevie Wonder and Oprah Winfrey to vouch for Kamala Harris and poke at Donald Trump and his running mate, JD Vance.

But it was Harris’ vice presidential pick, Minnesota governor, former congressman, high school teacher and football coach Tim Walz, who was the star of the program.

Columnists Anita Chabria and Mark Z. Barabak had these takeaways, and promise not to blitz you, the reader, with all kinds of gridiron metaphors.

Chabria: Wednesday was about Tim Walz sealing the deal on how the campaign wants voters to see him: Likable, responsible, kind and refreshingly ordinary. Basically the polar opposite to JD Vance.

Walz delivered on that, and more. Yes, his speech was short, but who among us faults a politician for keeping it brief? While more reserved than he’s been on the campaign trail (and in what looked like a new suit) he pounded home on a new and important political line — Trump supporters are not Trump, and they are not bad people.

Hillary Clinton famously stepped in it by saying at least half of Trump supporters could be placed in a “basket of deplorables.”

The second part of that quote was instantly lost into obscurity: “The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic — you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up.”

Harris-Walz aren’t going to make that mistake.

Walz debuted the new party line on how to think of everyday Trumpers: “That family down the road — they may not think like you do, they may not pray like you do, they may not love like you do, but they’re your neighbors. And you look out for them, and they look out for you.”

That sticks to a message of unity (disagreement over hate) while still leaving plenty of space to go after Trump and Vance both personally and on policy.

But for me, it was Gus, Walz’s 17-year-old son who has a nonverbal learning disorder, who brought home who this family and this man is. When Walz called his wife and kids his “entire world” from stage, Gus leaped up, clearly overcome, and yelled, “That’s my dad.”

I was done. But you had a different reaction to Walz, Mark?

Barabak: I thought Walz was fine.

He didn’t dazzle. There were no great rhetorical flights. He was workmanlike in that solid, flannel-shirt-wearing Midwestern Dad way of his.

Walz essentially had three jobs: Introduce himself to America after being plucked from relative obscurity. Make the case for the Democratic ticket. And show he could take the fight to the other side, which is the traditional role of a vice presidential running mate.

Check, check and check.

Walz depicted the horrors of life under a second Trump regime, using Project 2025, the Republican playbook for MAGA-fication of the federal goverment, as his text.

“Is it weird? Absolutely,” he said of the GOP blueprint, using the rejoinder that caught fire and helped launch him to the vice presidency. (Yep, he nodded, as the crowd in the convention hall went wild.) “But it’s also wrong and it’s dangerous.”

He put a little flesh on the bone, promising taxes would be cut for the middle class under a Harris administration, home-buying would become more accessible and government “would stay the hell out of your bedroom.”

If there were surprises, one was, as you said, the relative brevity of Walz’s remarks. He spoke for less than 20 minutes; the guy who presided over the roll call of states got more airtime.

The other thing was Walz’s demeanor.

He wasn’t the happy, bounding golden retriever seen at campaign rallies. Though he talked about joy, he didn’t radiate a whole lot of it, save for his walk-on and the gathering onstage with his family afterward.

Serious times require a serious approach, and all that. But where was the guy who looks like he just cashed a whopping lottery ticket?

I know Walz wasn’t your preferred choice for running mate.

Chabria: I was rooting for Pete Buttigieg. Buttigieg is a charismatic guy with the credentials and demeanor of a contender — but Walz is the right choice for the moment.

Still Buttigieg’s talent was on full display Wednesday. He humanized the risks of a Trump-Vance presidency using his own once-unlikely story of going from being an anxious Midwestern kid to a war veteran, to an openly gay, happily married father of two. That, he said, was what progress meant in everyday terms — because it would have been almost impossible one generation ago — and what we are in jeopardy of losing.

“The other side is appealing to what is smallest within you,” he said. “They’re telling you that greatness comes from going back to the past. They’re telling you that anyone different from you is a threat. They’re telling you that your neighbor or nephew or daughter who disagrees with you politically isn’t just wrong, but is now the enemy.”

So you weren’t blown away by Walz, Mark. Do you still think he was the right choice?

Barabak: I think Walz was the safe, and thus smart, pick. He and Harris have obviously developed a terrific personal chemistry, which is probably the most important thing.

I understand Buttigieg’s appeal. But at age 42, he can wait 35 years to run and still be younger than Joe Biden was when he became president.

Then there was Gov. Josh Shapiro — who was also a vice presidential contender and who seems to have weirdly copped Barack Obama’s speaking style. He would have invited all sorts of blowback over the war in Gaza, given his staunch pro-Israel position. (And, let’s face it, the fact he’s Jewish.)

There’s already a brewing controversy over the lack of any full-throated pro-Palestinian speakers at the convention.

Did anyone else stand out to you, Anita?

Chabria: Well, we have to get Oprah in here, right? Winfrey hit on another issue that gained attention Wednesday — immigration.

“Very soon, we’re going to be teaching our daughters and sons about how this child of an Indian mother and a Jamaican father, two idealistic, energetic immigrants — immigrants — how this child grew up to become the 47th president of the United States,” she said. “That is the best of America.”

The Democrats pushed back Wednesday on the “monsters” depiction of immigrants that defines the Trump-Vance ticket. But I have been surprised that more attention hasn’t been paid to the fact that Harris is the child of immigrants.

Maybe it’s just one identity too many when they are already attacking her for being mixed race. But she is living proof of what immigrants bring to this country and I was glad to see Winfrey point that out.

And one quick shout-out to poet Amanda Gorman, who read a new work on stage that ended with this: Let us not just believe in the American dream. Let us be worthy of it.

Of course, Bill Clinton was also in the house. What did you think of his speech?

Barabak: It was poignant to see the onetime boy wonder of national politics so obviously showing his age. Though, as Clinton slyly noted, he just turned 78 on Monday, meaning he’s still younger than Trump by a few months.

Reading from notes — Clinton never met a teleprompter he liked — the former president delivered a folksy 27-minute address (longer than Walz spoke) that continued his decades-long history of convention speeches. His first was in 1976, as Arkansas’ 30-year-old attorney general.

The passage of those decades was evident.

Clinton walked stiffly onstage. His voice was thin and he looked gaunt. He’ll be glad when Harris takes office, Clinton said — having once worked at McDonald’s, he joked, she’ll break his record as “the president who spent the most time” at the fast-food joint.

(A plaque at the McDonald’s in downtown Little Rock, Ark., commemorates Clinton’s patronage as governor and a presidential candidate.)

There was one clanging note.

“We’re going to walk out of here feeling pretty good,” he said. “We feel like a load is off our shoulders.”

As in, a burden named Biden?

Just sayin’...