Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, tapped by Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris to be her running mate Tuesday, catapulted from being a relative unknown on the national stage to a vice president contender in a matter of days — largely on the basis of a single word gone viral in various iterations. The word? “Weird.
” Walz used it to describe former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee and his vice president pick, Ohio Sen. JD Vance. In a July 23 MSNBC “Morning Joe” segment, Walz said, “These guys are just weird.
” The one-word framing caught fire. It spoke to people. And it caught on.
Democrats used it. Vice President Harris embraced it. At a rally last week in Atlanta, she said the GOP ticket was “just plain weird.
” In this 2024 election, where people have an overload of choices of how to receive political information, it turns out that one word spoke volumes across generations. “Weird” struck the right tone. More punch, in its own way, than the school boy insults Trump uses to taunt Harris, like calling her “low IQ.
” And “weird” pushed Walz to the front of the line and in a position to prevail over very capable rivals. Observations: ‘Hi, this is Tim’ The campaign put out a video of Harris calling Walz on Tuesday morning to give him the news. It was evocative of the video Joe Biden’s campaign produced when he called Harris in 2000 to offer her a spot on his ticket.
Walz picked up on one ring. “Hi, this is Tim,” he said, as if .