Washington.-The most important objective of the third day of the Democratic Convention was to introduce vice presidential candidate Tim Walz, a relative unknown to most of the American population until a few weeks ago.
Among his many accomplishments, the campaign team has highlighted his past as a high school sports coach where he taught for many years.
In his speech, Coach Walz, as he is affectionately called on the campaign trail, demonstrated why Kamala Harris made an excellent decision in choosing him as her running mate.
Preceded by Mankato West High School alumni he led to the 1999 Minnesota football championship, Walz entered the biggest stage of American politics as an ordinary person ready to take on the biggest challenge of his life.
Walz comes across as such an ordinary person, and such an uncommon politician, that even former President Barack Obama made a comment about him in his speech on Tuesday. When he took the floor, he seemed comfortable, self-assured and assertive, but without the need to take up all the space. In Tim Walz, Kamala Harris has found a communications partner who will not fight with her for stardom and who will effectively support her.
In his speech, Walz conveyed complex concepts in a simple and entertaining manner, like a good high school teacher. And being preceded by the alumni with whom he won the football championship not only served to connote that he is an ordinary person but also, and above all, that he is a winner. His record as a legislator and governor shows that he also knows how to win in politics, especially by making use of pragmatism and common sense.
The rest of the day leading up to Walz’s speech again saw an enthusiastic audience, although not as enthusiastic as the previous two days. The choice of speakers and their more uneven performances than those of Monday and Tuesday may have contributed to a less festive atmosphere.
Former President Bill Clinton was one of the standout speakers of the evening. He showed that he still has influence in the party, although not as strong as before. The reception to his speech was good, but not as enthusiastic as that of former President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle Obama, the stars of the second day.
The highlight of the evening, however, was neither Tim Walz’s appearance nor Bill Clinton’s return, but Oprah Winfrey’s surprise appearance. The audience erupted when she came on stage and followed her speech with marked enthusiasm. Winfrey was remarkably effective in communicating to the independent electorate the value of Kamala Harris’s candidacy.
As in previous days, one of the goals of the list of speakers was to give space to the party’s rising stars. On this third day, these figures included the governors of Pennsylvania and Maryland, Josh Shapiro and Wes Moore, respectively, and the secretary of transportation, Pete Buttigieg.
The eloquence of their speeches and the standing ovations they received from the stadium audience gave a powerful signal that, to continue with sporting metaphors, there is enough equipment for at least a couple of generations of party leaders.
As the convention progresses, the relative scarcity of public policy proposals becomes increasingly noticeable. At the morning press conference on the third day, a third of the questions from journalists focused on this scarcity. The communications director for the Harris-Walz campaign limited himself to saying that more proposals will be presented in the coming weeks.
Most of the speeches in these first three days of the Convention, beyond their differences, have exhibited a couple of common communication strategies.
On the one hand, highlighting the virtues of Kamala Harris, and to a lesser extent Tim Walz. In other words, it is about focusing on the virtues of the presidential duo’s biography as a source of political strength.
On the other hand, a large majority of the speeches have emphasized the weaknesses of Donald Trump as a leader, and to a lesser extent his vice presidential candidate JD Vance, and of his public policy proposals, especially Project 2025.
The latter, however appealing it may be to the Democratic Party’s base, could backfire on undecided voters. Focusing so much on criticizing other people’s proposals while delaying the presentation of one’s own may end up ceding the political center stage to Donald Trump.
This would risk defining the election by the negative (opposition to Trump and his Project 2025) rather than by the positive (support for Trump’s own public policies).
This third date of the Convention makes it clear that there is a team and there is mystique in the Democratic Party formula. What is not yet clear is what the actual plan and strategy are.
Sometimes you can win only with individuality and epicness. But a good coach knows that without a good plan and strategy of his own, victory is always more uncertain.Infobae.
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2024-08-29 12:09:02
