CHICAGO — Minnesota Governor Tim Walz accepted the Democratic nomination for vice president in a speech that drew on community values he learned from growing up in a small Nebraska town. It was a place where people, no matter their differences, pulled together, Walz said; “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 your neighbors.” It was a model for broader American evolution that, he said, contrasts with the divisiveness, indeed meanness, being espoused by Republican s under Donald Trump. A television audience of 21.9 million was tuned in live. Walz used imagery from his early career as a high school football coach to extoll the qualities he sees in Democratic candidates nationwide, as well as his teaming with Kamala Harris, the party’s presidential choice: “We’re driving down the field and, boy, do we have the right team.” A sea of blue and red “Coach Walz” signs bobbed in frenzied enthusiasm throughout the huge United Center coliseum. Political observers praised the animated Walz oratory as evocative Americana that mixed themes of football and freedom. About women’s issues, Walz repeated his stump-speech putdown against government intrusion in personal medical decisions. There’s a golden rule,” he said: “Mind your own damn business.”
Resonating on Midwest Americana themes: Football and freedom. Walz likens the America he sees as a macrocosm of the values from his upbringing in tiny Butte, population 400, in Nebraska — “neighbors looking out for neighbors.” One supporter told the national Democratic convention about Walz as a young teacher in Butte. He took on a second job himself to raise money for a boy who had run up a school lunch bill that his family couldn’t pay.