View From Here
Walz to Harris:“ Thank you for bringing back the joy!”

The Team is Set
View From Here
By David Mark Greaves
The Democratic ticket is now complete. Vice President Kamala Harris has selected Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate and four-year partner in the White House. In the end, the chemistry between them sealed the deal, and it’s easy to see why.
First, there’s his smile—it’s easy and trusting and says a lot about the man. Then his manner, his progressive stance on the issues of abortion, health care, gun safety, and LGBTQ rights, his story as a high school football coach, teacher, and command sergeant major in the National Guard, and his years in Congress show that the smile is not a deception. Vice President Harris saw that, and it made him her choice.
And now the teams have been set, and the contest is now a mean, nasty, and dark campaign with a vengeful, angry old man at the top and a younger, angry version as running mate, with a plan, Project 2025, to takeaway freedoms, versus a smiling and happy team, focused on enshrining freedoms for a future that must be met united and straight on. For this team, winning the popular vote is guaranteed, but winning the electoral college and the presidency is not so much.
Playing with the interactive electoral college map at www.270towin.com, looking at different paths to a Harris/Walz victory, it is disheartening to see the wide swath of the country that is comfortable voting for a felon and would-be dictator and knowing that he speaks for and inspires tens of millions of our fellow citizens.
It is reported that 92% of Republicans support him. We cannot forget any of that and be so blinded by the joy that we don’t see them coming.
We can safely ignore the Trump/Vance name-calling and racism; that’s a magician’s ploy so you don’t see the real action, as WNBC’s Rachel Maddow informs us, as they place their election-denying MAGA believer in key administrative posts at the county level to interfere with the vote certifying.
Republican operatives have been working for years for this moment and they thought it was a lock against an old lion. They have detailed plans written in the Project 2025 manual to take over the government and shape it into a White nationalist, autocratic state where Trump stays out of jail and the citizenry bows to their wishes. Now they’re seeing it all slip away, washed aside by laughter from a multiracial woman and a former high school football coach.
As we imagine the much brighter future we have to look forward to, such as passing the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and Freedom to Vote Act, two items Vice President Harris called out in the Philadelphia rally on Tuesday and which Republicans fear the most, we must push back and overwhelm the negative campaigns on social media. The way to do it is by “bringing back the joy,” as Governor Tim Walz thanked Vice President Harris for doing.
And that joy has a serious mission. As Harris told the crowd Monday night in Philly, “Our campaign is not just a fight against Donald Trump, our campaign, this campaign is a fight for the future. We fight for a future with affordable housing, affordable health care, affordable childcare, and paid leave.
We fight for a future where we build a broad-based economy, where every American has the opportunity to own a home, to start a business, and to build wealth… the chance not just to get by but to get ahead. We fight for our future where we defend our most fundamental freedoms: the freedom to vote, the freedom to be safe from gun violence, the freedom to love who you love openly and with pride, and the freedom of a woman to make decisions about her own body.”
This is a team entering the arena with smiles on their faces, and velvet gloves over the brass knuckles on their fists. A President Biden said, “This is a battle for the soul of the nation,” and one we cannot lose.
Now, back to the joy. What about a “Rappers and DJ’s for Harris/Walz” fundraiser, or a “Harris/Walz Waltz” Tik Tok dance meme?