Cornies: Tim Walz, as U.S. VP, would value relationship with Canada

Article content

Before the U.S. Democratic veepstakes began a couple of weeks ago, Tim Walz was a name unfamiliar to most Canadians, except for residents of southern Manitoba and northern Ontario.

There, the name likely produced at least a vague recognition because of the 880-kilometre-long border those provinces share with Minnesota, the state Walz governs.

Presidential candidate Kamala Harris’s choice of Walz as her running mate already has sparked meticulous scrutiny of his past, his military and congressional records, his legislative performance as governor of the land of 10,000 lakes and his personal life.

Article content

What was immediately clear about Harris’s selection of Walz over higher-profile candidates was she didn’t make the choice with Electoral College votes in mind. Minnesota is an historically Democratic state.

Rather, the choice of Walz was much more personal and less mathematical. According to an insider with the Harris campaign, she opted for Walz as someone who would appeal to Democratic loyalists and moderate Republicans and who could work with her to endure the onslaught from the Trump campaign that already has begun.

“MAGA is just going to unleash,” the staffer said. “These are going to be terrifyingly crazy days. [Harris] needs someone who will be able to prop her up during hard times and someone who, when these memes take hold, when the deepfakes take hold, when all those things start happening, will be able to stand by her.”

It’s also clear Harris values the kind of relationship she has had with President Joe Biden, one in which she has been an integral part of a team, not merely a chief executive “a heartbeat away from the presidency.”

According to former Bloomberg News executive editor Albert Hunt, it was another Minnesotan, Walter Mondale, who was the first “consequential” vice-president in American history.

Article content

Elected to office alongside president Jimmy Carter, Mondale became a close confidant in Carter’s administration. The two became partners on important files; they had weekly lunches. The vice-president’s office was moved from the old executive office building (EOB) into the White House. (Mondale famously said that “if you’re in the EOB, you might as well be in Baltimore.”) That gave Mondale unprecedented access to the president.

While it sounds logical now, it’s important to recall that, until Mondale, the vice-presidential role was largely ceremonial. It was so inconsequential that John Nance Garner, who twice served as Franklin Roosevelt’s VP, said the office was “not worth a bucket of warm spit.”

The “Mondale model” has been adopted by presidents from both parties: Bill Clinton and Al Gore, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, Barack Obama and Joe Biden, Biden and Harris. She clearly intends to continue with that framework.

Article content

The selection of Walz to complete the Democratic ticket was yet another is a series of remarkable events that have transformed a campaign that many Americans, only two months ago, saw as a depressing contest between two old white men. According to polls, many voters yearned for a different set of options.

Biden’s poor debate performance on June 27, the attempted assassination of Donald Trump in Pennsylvania on July 13, Trump’s announcement of J.D. Vance as his running mate two days later amid his party’s Milwaukee convention, Biden’s decision to step aside as the Democratic nominee on July 14, the ascension of Harris as the presumptive Democratic nominee; it’s been a whirlwind of events without precedent.

And that’s only the past six weeks. Who’s to say what could happen during the remaining 12?

Canadians, meanwhile, are right to be concerned about what’s looking like the most consequential American presidential election in decades.

Trump’s autocratic ambitions and his manipulation of the institutions of government to serve his own purposes, as well as his disdain for the rule of law, are on full display. Long-standing international relationships, whether they be military alliances, foreign aid or trade pacts, are all vulnerable.

Article content

The selection of Walz to the Democratic ticket adds one more reason (if one were needed) for Canadians to prefer a Harris win over Trump in November.

According to the Business Council of Canada, a fifth of all Minnesota’s exports are destined for Canada. This country, in turn, “is the sole source of Minnesota’s imported energy products, including crude oil, natural gas, liquid propane and electricity.”

In a Mondale-model administration, it would be valuable to have someone inside the White House with clarity about the importance of the Canada-U.S. relationship, even beyond the scope of the USMCA trade pact. As a plain-spoken, common-sense governor of a Midwest border state, Walz would bring that perspective.

Larry Cornies is a London-based journalist.

cornies@gmail.com

Article content