By EFE
22 Aug 2024, 07:47 AM EDT
By Alejandra Arredondo
Chicago – “Never underestimate a public school teacher.” With this line, Kamala Harris’ vice presidential running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, sent Chicago’s United Center into a roar.
Nicknamed “Coach Walz” for his past as a teacher and high school football coach, he energized attendees on the third day of the Democratic convention with an emotional speech in which he presented himself as a simple man who is connected to the concerns of the middle class.
Former President Donald Trump’s policy proposals, he said, “are part of an agenda that no one asked for” because “they serve no one except the richest and those with the most extreme ideologies.”
In a speech in which she referred to her experience in public school and her family’s personal history with assisted reproduction, Walz described herself as “a real person who can make a real difference.”
His children were present in the audience and the stadium cameras focused on them with tears in their eyes as they listened to their father’s speech on several occasions.
His son Gus, who has verbal problems and attention deficit disorder, became emotional during the speech and began exclaiming “that’s my dad.”
Before he appeared on stage, the now adult members of the Mankato West High School football team went up to applaud their “coach.”
Walz was elected governor of Minnesota, a state that voted Democratic in the last general election but whose rural population is overwhelmingly Republican and conservative in 2019. In 2022, he was re-elected for another four years.
Today, in front of a stadium filled with signs reading “Coach Walz,” he formally accepted the nomination as the Democratic vice presidential candidate.
Walz’s remarks were presided over by a number of old- and new-guard Democratic leaders, including former President Bill Clinton, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
Clinton, in one of the most captivating speeches of the night, joked about the fact that both he and Harris worked at McDonald’s in their youth and thanked President Joe Biden for his “courage” in deciding to end his election campaign.
The night featured several artists including rhythm and blues legend Stevie Wander, pop singer John Legend and powerhouse Amanda Godman.
Also, charismatic presenter Oprah Winfrey, one of the most important figures in popular culture in the United States, made a surprise appearance on stage, where she recalled the struggles of the African-American community in the country and urged voters to choose “joy” in the November elections.
Before prime time, where the party’s heavyweights spoke, the convention focused on the management of migration, one of the most polarizing issues in the US and which voters place as one of their priorities for November.
Speakers included lawmakers who helped negotiate a controversial immigration pact in Congress with their Republican counterparts that sought to impose tough legislative restrictions on the asylum system.
The pact failed to materialize due to opposition from former President Donald Trump, but if elected president, Harris has vowed to revive it.
The insistence on this bill by both the vice president and Democratic leaders cemented the hardening tone within the Democratic Party regarding the management of migration.
“We can be a nation of proud immigrants and a nation of strong immigration laws,” said Senator Chris Murphy during his speech, an idea echoed by Congressman Pete Aguilar and campaign advisor and El Paso legislator Veronica Escobar.
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