蒂姆·沃尔兹是谁？关于卡马拉·哈里斯副总统人选的五件事情
【中美创新时报2024 年 8 月 6 日编译讯】（记者温友平编译）副总统卡马拉·哈里斯已决定选择明尼苏达州州长蒂姆·沃尔兹作为她竞选总统的搭档。美联社记者STEVE KARNOWSKI 和 JOHN HANNA对此作了下述报道。
在总统乔·拜登决定不寻求连任后的几天里，这位 60 岁的民主党人和退伍军人通过一系列直言不讳的电视节目成为焦点。他使他的州成为自由政策的堡垒，今年，成为为数不多的保护粉丝在线购买泰勒·斯威夫特音乐会和其他现场活动门票的州之一。
以下是关于沃尔兹的一些事情：
沃尔兹来自美国农村
很难找到比沃尔兹更能生动地代表美国心脏地带的人。沃尔兹出生于内布拉斯加州西点市，该市位于奥马哈西北部，人口约 3,500 人。他加入了国民警卫队，并成为内布拉斯加州的一名教师。
20 世纪 90 年代，他和妻子搬到了明尼苏达州南部的曼卡托。在那里，他在曼卡托西高中教授社会研究并担任橄榄球教练，包括 1999 年带领球队赢得该校四次州冠军中的第一次。他仍然提到自己在那里的工会会员资格。
沃尔兹在国民警卫队服役 24 年，2005 年从野战炮兵营退役，担任指挥士官长，这是军队中最高的士兵军衔之一。
他具有与保守派选民建立联系的能力
在他第一次竞选国会议员时，沃尔兹击败了一位共和党现任议员。那是在 2006 年，当时他在明尼苏达州南部一个以农村为主的国会选区击败了六届众议员吉尔·古特克内希特。沃尔兹利用了选民对当时的总统乔治·W·布什和伊拉克战争的愤怒。
在美国众议院任职六届期间，沃尔兹一直支持退伍军人问题。
他还展示了脚踏实地的一面，部分是通过社交媒体上与女儿霍普的视频帖子。去年秋天，他们在谈论了博览会食品和霍普是素食主义者之后，尝试了明尼苏达州博览会的游乐设施“弹弓”。
他可以帮助他在关键的中西部州获得选票
虽然沃尔兹不是来自威斯康星州、密歇根州和宾夕法尼亚州等关键的“蓝墙”州之一，双方都认为他们需要在这些州获胜，但他就在隔壁。他还可以确保明尼苏达州继续掌握在民主党手中。
这很重要，因为前总统唐纳德·特朗普将明尼苏达州描绘成今年的热门，尽管该州自 2006 年以来就没有选举过共和党人担任全州公职。自 1972 年理查德·尼克松总统以压倒性优势获胜以来，共和党总统候选人就没有赢得过该州，但特朗普已经在那里竞选过。
当民主党州长马克·戴顿决定在 2018 年不寻求第三任期时，沃尔兹以“一个明尼苏达州”的主题竞选并获胜。
沃尔兹还轻松地谈论了锈带选民关心的问题。他一直是民主党事业的拥护者，包括工会组织、工人权利和每小时 15 美元的最低工资。
他有处理分治政府的经验
在担任州长的第一个任期内，沃尔兹面临着民主党领导的众议院和共和党控制的参议院之间的立法分裂，后者抵制了他提出的通过提高税收来增加学校、医疗保健和道路资金的提议。但他和立法者达成了妥协，使该州的分裂政府仍然富有成效。
在他任职的第二年，两党合作变得更加艰难，因为他在 COVID-19 大流行期间利用州长的紧急权力关闭企业和学校。共和党人反击并迫使一些机构负责人下台。共和党人还批评沃尔兹，他们认为他对 2020 年明尼阿波利斯一名警察谋杀乔治·弗洛伊德后有时发生的暴力骚乱反应迟缓。
在击败共和党人斯科特·詹森（一位全国闻名的疫苗怀疑论者）后，沃尔兹在第二任期内的情况变得更容易了。民主党控制了两个立法机构，在巨额预算盈余的帮助下，为州政府走向更自由的路线铺平了道路。
沃尔兹和立法者废除了共和党过去制定的几乎所有州堕胎限制，保护了对跨性别青年的性别肯定护理，并将大麻的娱乐性使用合法化。
民主党拒绝了共和党关于使用州预算盈余来减税的请求，为儿童提供免费学校餐，为年收入低于 80,000 美元的家庭学生提供公立大学免费学费，提供带薪家庭和医疗休假计划，以及无论个人移民身份如何都提供的健康保险。
他对政治精辟独到
沃尔兹上个月在接受 MSNBC 采访时称共和党候选人唐纳德·特朗普和竞选搭档 JD 万斯“很奇怪”，沃尔兹担任主席的民主党州长协会在 X 上的一篇文章中进一步阐述了这一观点。沃尔兹后来在 CNN 上重申了这一描述，并引用了特朗普在竞选演讲中多次提到电影《沉默的羔羊》中虚构的连环杀手汉尼拔·莱克特的例子。
这个词很快变成了哈里斯和其他民主党人的主题，并有可能成为毫无疑问奇怪的 2024 年大选的口号。
题图：蒂姆·沃尔兹。Nicole Neri/Bloomberg
附原英文报道：
Who is Tim Walz? Five things to know about Kamala Harris’s choice for vice president.
By STEVE KARNOWSKI and JOHN HANNA The Associated Press,Updated August 6, 2024
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris has decided on Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate in her bid for the White House.
The 60-year-old Democrat and military veteran rose to the forefront with a series of plain-spoken television appearances in the days after President Joe Biden decided not to seek a second term. He has made his state a bastion of liberal policy and, this year, one of the few states to protect fans buying tickets online for Taylor Swift concerts and other live events.
Some things to know about Walz:
Walz comes from rural America
It would be hard to find a more vivid representative of the American heartland than Walz. Born in West Point, Nebraska, a community of about 3,500 people northwest of Omaha, Walz joined the Army National Guard and became a teacher in Nebraska.
He and his wife moved to Mankato in southern Minnesota in the 1990s. That’s where he taught social studies and coached football at Mankato West High School, including for the 1999 team that won the first of the school’s four state championships. He still points to his union membership there.
Walz served 24 years in the Army National Guard before retiring from a field artillery battalion in 2005 as a command sergeant major, one of the military’s highest enlisted ranks.
He has a proven ability to connect with conservative voters
In his first race for Congress, Walz upset a Republican incumbent. That was in 2006, when he won in a largely rural, southern Minnesota congressional district against six-term Rep. Gil Gutknecht. Walz capitalized on voter anger with then-President George W. Bush and the Iraq war.
During six terms in the U.S. House, Walz championed veterans’ issues.
He’s also shown a down-to-earth side, partly through social media video posts with his daughter, Hope. One last fall showed them trying a Minnesota State Fair ride, “The Slingshot,” after they bantered about fair food and her being a vegetarian.
He could help the ticket in key midwestern states
While Walz isn’t from one of the crucial “blue wall” states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, where both sides believe they need to win, he’s right next door. He also could ensure that Minnesota stays in the hands of Democrats.
That’s important because former President Donald Trump has portrayed Minnesota as being in play this year, even though the state hasn’t elected a Republican to statewide office since 2006. A GOP presidential candidate hasn’t carried the state since President Richard Nixon’s landslide in 1972, but Trump has already campaigned there.
When Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton decided not to seek a third term in 2018, Walz campaigned and won the office on a “One Minnesota” theme.
Walz also speaks comfortably about issues that matter to voters in the Rust Belt. He’s been a champion of Democratic causes, including union organizing, workers’ rights and a $15-an-hour minimum wage.
He has experience with divided government
In his first term as governor, Walz faced a Legislature split between a Democratic-led House and a Republican-controlled Senate that resisted his proposals to use higher taxes to boost money for schools, health care and roads. But he and lawmakers brokered compromises that made the state’s divided government still seem productive.
Bipartisan cooperation became tougher during his second year as he used the governor’s emergency power during the COVID-19 pandemic to shutter businesses and close schools. Republicans pushed back and forced out some agency heads. Republicans also remain critical of Walz over what they see as his slow response to sometimes violent unrest that followed the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer in 2020.
Things got easier for Walz in his second term, after he defeated Republican Scott Jensen, a physician known nationally as a vaccine skeptic. Democrats gained control of both legislative chambers, clearing the way for a more liberal course in state government, aided by a huge budget surplus.
Walz and lawmakers eliminated nearly all of the state abortion restrictions enacted in the past by Republicans, protected gender-affirming care for transgender youth and legalized the recreational use of marijuana.
Rejecting Republican pleas that the state budget surplus be used to cut taxes, Democrats funded free school meals for children, free tuition at public colleges for students in families earning under $80,000 a year, a paid family and medical leave program and health insurance coverage regardless of a person’s immigration status.
He has an ear for sound-bite politics
Walz called Republican nominee Donald Trump and running mate JD Vance “just weird” in an MSNBC interview last month and the Democratic Governors Association — which Walz chairs — amplified the point n a post on X. Walz later reiterated the characterization on CNN, citing Trump’s repeated mentions of the fictional serial killer Hannibal Lecter from the film “Silence of the Lambs” in stump speeches.
The word quickly morphed into a theme for Harris and other Democrats, and has a chance to be a watchword of the undoubtably weird 2024 election.
