哈里斯和沃尔兹称他们是“快乐的战士”，险些与万斯在停机坪上发生冲突
【中美创新时报2024 年 8 月 8 日编译讯】（记者温友平编译）副总统卡马拉·哈里斯周三宣布自己和她的新竞选搭档明尼苏达州州长蒂姆·沃尔兹是反对唐纳德·特朗普的“快乐战士”，他们一起在中西部地区度过了第一天的竞选活动。当他们在威斯康星州的停机坪上与共和党副总统候选人 JD Vance 相遇时，他们不同寻常地看到了该地区竞争的激烈程度。美联社记者达琳·苏珀维尔、乔伊·卡佩莱蒂和梅格·金纳德（DARLENE SUPERVILLE, JOEY CAPPELLETTI and MEG KINNARD）对此作了下述详细报道。
民主党人访问了威斯康星州和密歇根州，希望巩固年轻、多元化、劳工友好型选民的支持，这些选民在帮助拜登总统赢得 2020 年大选方面发挥了重要作用。
哈里斯在当天欧克莱尔的第一次集会上说：“正如蒂姆·沃尔兹喜欢指出的那样，我们是快乐的战士。”哈里斯竞选团队表示，在她宣布沃尔兹为竞选搭档后的前 24 小时内，他们筹集了 3600 万美元，这也助长了这种感觉。
副总统说，这对搭档对未来持乐观态度，不像前总统、共和党白宫候选人特朗普，她指责特朗普沉溺于过去，喜欢对抗性的政治风格——尽管她自己也批评了对手。
“那些建议我们废除美国宪法的人永远不应该再有机会坐在美国国徽后面，”哈里斯提高了声音说。
来自威斯康星州鹈鹕湖的丹·米勒是 12,000 多名欧克莱尔集会参与者之一，他说拜登“是一位了不起的总统，但他已经不再是以前的那个信使了。”
“有时你需要一个更好的信使，”米勒说。“那就是卡马拉。”
后来，在底特律郊外机场机库举行的晚间活动中，竞选团队宣布有 15,000 人参加，密歇根州州长格雷琴·惠特默——她自己经常被提及为未来的总统候选人——宣称，“我们需要一位坚强的女性入主白宫，是时候了。”
“这次选举将是一场战斗，”哈里斯在同一场活动中说道。“我们喜欢一场精彩的战斗。”
这一转变对哈里斯来说尤其重要，因为拜登四年前的获胜联盟在夏季出现了破裂的迹象——尤其是在密歇根州，该州已成为民主党因拜登处理以色列与哈马斯冲突的方式而产生分歧的焦点。
随着总统退出竞选，阿拉伯裔美国人社区和主要工会的领导人表示，他们对哈里斯的竞选搭档选择感到鼓舞。沃尔兹的加入缓解了一些紧张局势，向一些领导人发出信号，哈里斯听到了人们对另一位副总统候选人、宾夕法尼亚州州长乔什·夏皮罗的担忧，他们认为夏皮罗对以色列的支持太过分了。
“该党认识到他们必须重建一个联盟，”密歇根州迪尔伯恩市阿拉伯裔美国人聚居区市长阿卜杜拉·哈穆德说。“选择沃尔兹是另一个诚意的表现。”
尽管如此，在哈里斯在密歇根州发表演讲时，挥之不去的分歧仍然存在，当时她被反对以色列与哈马斯战斗的抗议者打断。起初，哈里斯对那些试图扰乱她的人说：“我来这里是因为我相信民主，每个人的声音都很重要。”
这与拜登的回应类似，拜登经常在集会上被打断时说，抗议者应该被允许发言，然后被保安带走。然而，哈里斯随后迅速转向更强硬的策略，继续说：“但我现在正在发言。”这引起了大多数观众的欢呼声。
“如果你希望唐纳德·特朗普获胜，那就这么说吧，”副总统对抗议者继续说道。“否则，我就在发言。”
示威者最终被带走，但在此之前，哈里斯的支持者和抗议者发生了紧张的对峙，他们互相大喊大叫。
与此同时，特朗普选择俄亥俄州参议员万斯作为竞选搭档，强调要吸引中西部选民。万斯周三将在密歇根州和威斯康星州亮相，以此作为哈里斯和沃尔兹的竞选搭档。
两人的会面时间重叠了不少，以至于当哈里斯还在威斯康星州奇珀瓦谷地区机场迎接一群前来迎接她的女童子军时，万斯的竞选飞机就降落在附近，在远处滑行。就在万斯下飞机的同时，哈里斯与女孩们合影留念，然后他开始走向空军二号，他的保镖跟在后面。
副总统最终爬上了她的车队，在他们互动之前，车队就开走了。不过，考虑到竞选日程的精心安排，两人如此接近还是很不寻常的。
“我只是想看看我未来的飞机，”万斯后来告诉记者，这意味着如果他和特朗普在 11 月当选，他将乘坐空军二号出行。他还批评哈里斯自成为总统候选人以来没有举行新闻发布会。
“如果那些人想说我很奇怪，那我就说这是荣誉勋章，”万斯回应沃尔兹用来形容他的绰号，这个绰号在哈里斯任命他为竞选搭档前几天让这位明尼苏达州州长在网上名声大噪。
沃尔兹在威斯康星州和密歇根州都对万斯提出了一些批评，但他最尖锐的言辞大多针对特朗普，他说这位前总统“嘲笑我们的法律，他在人民中制造混乱和分裂，更不用说他作为总统所做的工作了。”
沃尔兹还强调，他和哈里斯正在促进睦邻友好和共同社区，甚至暗示他所在州的球迷为底特律长期表现不佳的 NFL 球队感到高兴，当时这支球队几乎进入了最近的超级碗：“维京人球迷为雄狮队感到骄傲。”
这种势头可能对底特律至关重要，因为底特律的黑人人口接近 80%，几个月来，该市的领导人一直警告政府官员，选民的冷漠可能会让他们在这个通常是民主党据点的城市付出代价。
全国有色人种协进会底特律分会主席温德尔·安东尼牧师表示，现在这座城市的兴奋情绪“令人震惊”。他将其比作巴拉克·奥巴马 2008 年首次竞选总统时，当时选民排着长队等待帮助选出美国第一位黑人总统。
然而，密歇根州的一些民主党领导人担心，选择错误的竞选搭档可能会减缓这种势头，并破坏最近才开始团结起来的联盟。
由于在底特律大都会地区拥有大量阿拉伯裔美国人领导人，他们在密歇根州拥有重要影响力，他们曾直言反对夏皮罗，因为他过去对以色列与哈马斯冲突发表过言论。
这些领导人特别指出，他今年早些时候就大学校园抗议活动发表的评论，他们认为，他将学生抗议者的行为与白人至上主义者的行为相提并论是不公平的。夏皮罗是犹太人，他批评了以色列总理本雅明·内塔尼亚胡，同时仍然是坚定的以色列支持者。
奥萨马·西布拉尼是迪尔伯恩阿拉伯裔美国人新闻的出版商，也是密歇根州庞大穆斯林社区的著名领袖，他是上周在密歇根会见白宫顾问汤姆·佩雷斯的人之一。自从佩雷斯和其他高级官员陪同拜登前往迪尔伯恩修复与社区的关系以来，他一直与迪尔伯恩的一些领导人保持联系。
西布拉尼说，他在 7 月 29 日与佩雷斯会面了一个多小时，并告诉他，如果哈里斯选择夏皮罗，就会“关闭”未来的对话。
“不选夏皮罗是一个非常好的举措。这为我们打开了一扇新的大门，”西布拉尼说。
题图：民主党总统候选人副总统卡马拉·哈里斯和她的竞选搭档明尼苏达州州长蒂姆·沃尔兹于 2024 年 8 月 7 日星期三在威斯康星州欧克莱尔举行的竞选集会上。JENN ACKERMAN/NYT
附原英文报道：
Harris and Walz say they’re ‘joyful warriors,’ narrowly miss tarmac confrontation with Vance
By DARLENE SUPERVILLE, JOEY CAPPELLETTI and MEG KINNARD The Associated Press,Updated August 8, 2024
EAU CLAIRE, Wis. — Vice President Kamala Harris declared herself and her new running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, “joyful warriors” against Donald Trump on Wednesday as they spent their first full day campaigning together across the Midwest. They got an unusual glimpse of how hotly contested the region would be when they overlapped on a Wisconsin tarmac with Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance.
The Democrats visited Wisconsin and Michigan, hoping to shore up support among the younger, diverse, labor-friendly voters who were instrumental in helping President Biden win the 2020 election.
Harris told the day’s first rally in Eau Claire, “As Tim Walz likes to point out, we are joyful warriors.” Contributing to that feeling, the Harris campaign said it had raised $36 million in the first 24 hours after she announced Walz as her running mate.
The vice president said the pair looks at the future with optimism, unlike Trump, the former president and Republican White House nominee, whom she accused of being stuck in the past and preferring a confrontational style of politics — even as she criticized her opponent herself.
“Someone who suggests we should terminate the Constitution of the United States should never again have the chance to sit behind the seal of the United States,” Harris said, her voice rising.
Dan Miller, from Pelican Lake, Wisconsin, who was among 12,000-plus Eau Claire rally attendees, said Biden “has been an incredible president, but he just isn’t the same messenger.”
“And sometimes you need a better messenger,” Miller said. “And that’s Kamala.”
Later, at an evening event in an airport hangar outside Detroit where the campaign announced a crowd of 15,000, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer — herself frequently mentioned as a future presidential candidate — declared, “We need a strong woman in the White House and it’s about damn time.”
“This election’s going to be a fight,” Harris told the same event. “We like a good fight.”
The swing was especially important for Harris since Biden’s winning coalition from four years ago has shown signs of fraying over the summer — particularly in Michigan, which has emerged as a focal point of Democratic divisions over Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas conflict.
With the president now out of the race, leaders of the Arab American community and key unions say they are encouraged by Harris’ running mate choice. Walz’s addition to the ticket has soothed some tensions, signaling to some leaders that Harris had heard concerns about another leading contender for the vice presidential slot, Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, who they felt had gone too far in his support for Israel.
“The party is recognizing that there’s a coalition they have to rebuild,” said Abdullah Hammoud, the mayor of the heavily Arab American community of Dearborn, Michigan. “Picking Walz is another sign of good faith.”
Lingering dissensions were nonetheless on display during Harris’ Michigan speech, when she was interrupted by protesters opposing Israel’s fighting with Hamas. At first, Harris said to those trying to disrupt her, “I am here because I believe in democracy and everybody’s voice matters.”
That was a response similar to Biden’s, who often said when interrupted at his rallies that protesters should be allowed to speak before being removed by security. Harris, however, then quickly pivoted to a tougher tack, continuing, “But I am speaking now.” That sparked cheers from most of the audience.
“If you want Donald Trump to win, then say that,” the vice president continued over the protesters. “Otherwise, I’m speaking.”
Those demonstrating were eventually led away, but not before a tense confrontation between Harris supporters and protesters who screamed at one another.
Trump, meanwhile, has emphasized appealing to Midwestern voters with his choice of Vance, an Ohio senator, as his running mate. Vance bracketed the Harris-Walz ticket with Michigan and Wisconsin appearances of his own Wednesday.
He overlapped enough that while Harris was still greeting a group of Girl Scouts who came to see her arrive at Chippewa Valley Regional Airport in Wisconsin, Vance’s campaign plane landed nearby and was taxiing in the distance. Harris posed for a group picture with the girls around the same time Vance was deplaning, and he began walking over to Air Force Two, trailed by his security detail.
The vice president eventually climbed into her motorcade, and it pulled away before they could interact. Still, that the pair came so close to doing so was unusual given the carefully scripted nature of campaign schedules.
“I just wanted to check out my future plane,” Vance later told reporters, meaning that he’d travel on Air Force Two should he and Trump be elected in November. He also criticized Harris for not holding press conferences since she became a presidential candidate.
“If those people want to call me weird I call it a badge of honor,” Vance said, responding to a moniker Walz used to describe him that made the Minnesota governor notable online in the days before Harris tapped him as her running mate.
Walz had some critical words for Vance in both Wisconsin and Michigan but trained most of his sharpest words on Trump, saying the former president “mocks our laws, he sows chaos and division amongst the people and that’s to say nothing of the job he did as president.”
Walz also stressed that he and Harris are promoting neighborliness and common community, even suggesting that his state’s football fans were happy for Detroit’s long-underperforming NFL team when it nearly made the most recent Super Bowl: “Vikings fans are proud of the Lions.”
The momentum could be pivotal in Detroit, which is nearly 80% Black, where leaders for months had warned administration officials that voter apathy could cost them in a city that’s typically a stronghold for their party.
Rev. Wendell Anthony, president of the NAACP Detroit branch, said the excitement in the city now is “mind-blowing.” He likened it to Barack Obama’s first presidential run in 2008, when voters waited in long lines to help elect the nation’s first Black president.
Some Democratic leaders in Michigan had grown concerned that choosing the wrong running mate could slow that momentum, however, and fracture a coalition that has only recently started to unify.
Arab American leaders, who hold significant influence in Michigan due to a large presence in metro Detroit, had been vocal in their opposition to Shapiro due to his past comments regarding the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Those leaders specifically pointed to a comment he made earlier this year regarding protests on university campuses, which they felt unfairly compared the actions of student protesters to those of white supremacists. Shapiro, who is Jewish, has criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu while remaining a staunch supporter of Israel.
Osama Siblani, the publisher of the Dearborn-based Arab American News and a prominent leader in Michigan’s large Muslim community, was among those who met with White House adviser Tom Perez in Michigan last week. Perez has maintained contact with some Dearborn leaders since he and other top officials traveled there with Biden to mend ties with the community.
Siblani said he met with Perez for over an hour on July 29 and told him that if Harris chose Shapiro, it would “shut down” future conversations.
“Not picking Shapiro is a very good step. It cracks the door open a little more for us,” Siblani said.
