Wooley: Joyful warriors’ campaign a welcome change from Trump chaos and carnage
Harris and new running mate Walz’s sunnier campaign is so much better than Trump’s dark, bitter, ill-humoured approach, observes Charles Wooley.
Opinion
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Not since the early days of Obama have we seen such enthusiasm from the Democrats (disclosure: in Australia I am a Republican and in America I am a Democrat.)
Watching CNN’s live coverage of the Democrat crowd in Philadelphia this week the atmosphere was electrifying. I experienced a most unfamiliar political sense of betting on a winner.
With only 91 days to go before the November election, Vice President Kamala Harris had finally made up her mind to dance with the popular Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. She had chosen as a running-mate, “a leader who can unite this nation and move us forward,” she said, describing him as a “patriot who believes, as I do, the extraordinary promise of America. A promise of freedom, opportunity and justice, not just for some, but for all.”
She appears to have chosen an almost ‘too good to be true’ candidate straight out of Hollywood central casting.
What a CV: a former high school teacher, who at 17 enlisted in the Army National Guard where he served for 24 years, and a successful football coach before he entered politics to represent Minnesota in the House of Representatives. He is now in the middle of his second term as State Governor. He was even endorsed by the National Riflemen’s Association and describes himself as a gun owner and the best shot in Congress.
On the other hand, having a bit each way he is an advocate for “sensible” gun control. He is also, as we saw in Philly, a rousing public speaker who epitomises all the values of middle America.
Yes, I see it coming too.
If you’ve watched all those political candidate movies where even George Clooney ends up having feet of clay, then like me you are wondering where is the fatal flaw?
But maybe there isn’t one. Remember it was all theatre this week. Walz would have been thoroughly vetted before the televised stunt where he took the call from Harris.
If as a kid he once tore the wings off a butterfly or shot a nesting wren with his air rifle the party and the Secret Service would know about it.
Certainly, the seemingly perfect candidate has got the Republicans panicking. The best they could come up with so far was that under his governorship tampons were made available in the boy’s toilets of some state schools. Then late in the week, came an accusation that Walz quit the Army Reserve after 24 years to avoid service in Iraq.
Meanwhile, Fox News, which is really Channel Trump, has been observing that Walz’s suit was “ill fitting”.
Look I’m only a journo and can hardly pass sartorial comment but given the fit of Trump’s oversized concealing jackets they will need to do better than that.
They will need to dig up some real dirt. And you can bet they are looking for it.
But given Trump’s well-established crimes and misdemeanors it will have to be something truly shocking.
When on video, Harris invited Walz to join her presidential ticket he must have known what was coming because in the USA politics always has to be great theatre. It needs to be, because voting is not compulsory and if their politicians were as colourful as ours, no one would bother.
Tim Walz’s response on being asked to dance was interesting. “The joy that you’re bringing back to the country, the enthusiasm that’s out there, it’ll be a privilege to take this with you across the country.”
Before Walz had raised that joy-factor it had struck me that Harris’s happy demeanour was so much more attractive than Trump’s bitter ill-humored and splenetic character.
“I call her laughing Kamala. Have you seen her laughing? She’s crazy,” Trump has repeatedly said. The implication is that being happy is crazy. He never laughs or smiles except when he is sneering. His mouth is almost always down at the corners. I followed the New York court case in which Trump was found guilty of falsifying business records to conceal the “hush money” but not closely enough to hear if the recipient, Stormy Daniels, ever made him smile.
Here’s the question. Why would Trump think laughter and smiles means that Vice President Harris is “crazy”?
It is quite possible, given his refusal to play by the rules when he lost the last election that Trump is not familiar with American constitutional history and the place of happiness therein.
In particular with that wonderful phrase from the Declaration of Independence which enshrines among the “unalienable rights” of human beings, these qualities: “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”
I can’t think of another nation which has enshrined the “pursuit of happiness” in that way. Certainly not Australia. Our constitution is a dry and dreary economic document with a lot to say about free trade between states and nothing to say about happiness.
Maybe it was Malcolm Fraser, never known to be joyful, who drafted a dour de facto amendment to our constitution when he pronounced, “Life was not meant to be easy.”
I’ve spent a lot of time in the USA. I admire their cockeyed optimism and recognise that in the long passage of history from 1776 until today without the Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution, our own democracy might not have emerged.
Thanks to their great battle for freedom, we didn’t even have to fight for ours in 1901.
But now the way things are looking we might need their help again in the near future.
With Trump very much an isolationist, Harris and the Democrats are probably our safest bet.
And at the very least we can thank Kamala Harris for redressing the acrimony and nastiness of Trumpian politics with laughter and a dash of optimism.
We might even echo Governor Tim Walz this week when he told the Vice President, “Thank you for bringing back the joy.”
Charles Wooley is Tasmanian-based journalist
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