Republicans Failed To Tank Positive Approval Of "Everyman" Tim Walz

Tim Walz was the only candidate on the presidential ticket that had a positive approval rating. The mountain of attacks the right wing leveled at him just never seemed to stick. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

Tim Walz, let's talk about it. Was he a good choice?

Absolutely. I still think Tim Walz was really good.

I know you've been a fan. That's why I come up with that question. I don't mean that in a demeaning kinda way. But you've always said, yeah, this is the guy. Everybody else says he was too weak. Shapiro should have been there, should have had, there were two or three people that could have been. What's his name out of Kentucky? I can't remember.

Beshear?

Beshear, yeah. Shapiro, Beshear. So what is it you think made him effective?

I think he was a great speaker. I think he was very down to earth. He was the every man. That's who he was. None of the attacks that the right leveled against him, even calling him tampon Tim, none of it actually stuck. He was the only person running in this election on that presidential ticket from any party, any party, that had a positive approval rating. The only one, and it's because he was everybody's grandpa. Right. Just this kind of happy, jovial guy. And maybe, I don't know that switching him for Shapiro, because I did have that thought on election night, I thought, well.

It would've been good in Pennsylvania.

Yeah. But.

Pennsylvania wasn't the difference. All this stuff about it's going to be Pennsylvania, BS.

Because she would've had to get Wisconsin too, which she didn't, or any of the other states. So I don't think it would have mattered. I think we still are in a country where the public is not going to put a woman in the White House right now. Listen, Trump ran three times. He beat Hillary and he beat Kamala. He didn't beat Biden. Who was the most beatable out of all three of 'em. So.

Especially from his cellar, I thought he was pretty weak.

I think that does speak volumes. I think that is of course, one of the elephants in the room here. But also with all of these other things you talk about, the list you had that was so prevalent in right wing media, which has the biggest audience, much bigger than cable news, much bigger than all the left put together. When they pushed that narrative through 40 podcasts a day and 20 different websites.

Well, they pushed the narrative on Walz, really, that the Democrats had become this cultural freak show with more time spent in placating an army of oddballs than focusing on jobs, economy, education, healthcare, and groceries and he was one of 'em. That's the way they tried to characterize him. I don't think it took off.

Right. And you look at the specifics in Minnesota, the job creation, the economic prosperity that they have had, that came from Walz. So he knows what he is doing. He may have this kind of, aw shucks, every man. He's also very smart.

His career, I think is dead in the water now.

Right. I think given his age, I don't think he had aspirations to be anything more than that. I don't even know if he fully wanted to do this. But I do think maybe letting him out a little bit more would have been beneficial, because they also kept him on a very short leash. We're not gonna send you out to do too much stuff. You had as per usual with the Democrats, bad handlers, they didn't let the candidates be themselves. Meanwhile, over on Trump's side, they try to reign him in and he just gives 'em the middle finger and says whatever the hell he wants to say.

Yeah. The big division that comes out of this, I think Harris is somewhat, excuse me, Walz is kind of part of that discussion. That's why I'm bringing it up now. After this, you're going to see, I believe, a huge division, strong division in the Democratic party. You're going to say, like this quote that I just read, Democrats have become a cultural freak show where more time is spent placating an army of oddballs than focusing on jobs, economy, education, healthcare and groceries. And I think there's going to be backlash there.