In FERN’s latest story, in partnership with The New York Times, reporter Ted Genoways explains how Tim Walz, the Democrats’ vice presidential nominee, is taking the fight to Republicans in rural America.
Genoways writes:
As Tim Walz took the stage at the Astro Theater in the Omaha suburb of La Vista on Saturday afternoon, the crowd roared with approval. Nearly 2,500 people were packed inside the auditorium, and thousands more were watching on big screens outside. It was the first time that Mr. Walz, the Minnesota governor, had been back to the state where he was born and grew up since Kamala Harris tapped him to join the Democratic ticket. He wasted no time in contrasting his running mate’s early years with her opponent Donald Trump’s gilded upbringing.
Ms. Harris, Mr. Walz reminded the audience, worked at McDonald’s in high school. “Can you picture Donald Trump working the McFlurry machine?” he asked. Later, he used a similar line of attack on Mr. Trump’s running mate. “You think JD Vance knows one damn thing about Nebraska?” he asked. “You think he’s ever had a Runza?” (A Runza is a German-style meat and cabbage roll that, improbably, can be purchased as fast food in Nebraska.) “That guy would call it a Hot Pocket,” he said. “You know it.”
For a generation or more, most of the politicians who visited towns like La Vista were Republicans who told their audiences a familiar story: that the government was in their way, that the welfare state was leeching their sweat and tears to service the lazy poor, that rugged individualism still reigned supreme. It’s the same story that Mr. Vance and his fellow Republicans are telling today. Mr. Walz is making a bold play to claw back the narrative by telling a different story — one that harks back to the prairie populists of the 20th century.
Read the full story in the Times. The piece will be available soon at www.thefern.org.