Gwen Walz’s empathy

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You know the recipe for a traditional political convention: Political star power, celebrities, a lot of preaching to the choir, standing ovations, speeches that run long and cutaways to delirious delegates.

And then there’s Gwen Walz, aspiring Second Lady and professional-grade empath. For all the marquee names, she is, I believe, a tremendous stealth asset — particularly among women her age and up, who are moving toward the Democratic ticket, but not as quickly as younger voters are.

Note to campaign organizers: Gwen Walz can help because she is hardwired to understand and share the feelings of others, which is what being empathic is all about. You can tell just looking at her.

The first-night roster was full of speakers I knew I wanted to hear, like Hillary Clinton, and speakers I didn’t know, like Olympics basketball coach Steve Kerr. And yet what mesmerized me was Gwen Walz, who said not a word but sat quietly and watched the proceedings.

I paid as much attention to her reactions as to the speakers who elicited them. As she listened to Hillary Clinton and the quartet who spoke about personal tragedies and reproductive rights, her eyes welled up, and she set her mouth the way people do when they’re trying to hold it together. Sometimes she managed a small and sympathetic smile, a rueful shaking of the head, or a glance heavenward, as though trying to regain her composure. Any woman who’s ever tried not to fall apart will likely recognize the moves.

A cynic will say she was looking at a big screen somewhere, but Tim Walz and Doug Emhoff were looking straight ahead.

And if you think I am merely one sloppy sentimental woman talking about another, I refer you to the National Institutes of Health’s Library of Medicine, where you can read a research article about the compassionate face.

One night later, empathy appeared onstage: “Her empathy is her strength,” said Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, in praise of his wife. Michelle Obama talked about Kamala Harris’ compassionate nature and included empathy as a quality voters have to protect on Nov. 5. On the other hand, Donald Trump’s former White House press secretary, Stephanie Grisham, called out her one-time boss for not having any.

I’ve always stood in awe of public figures who channel their emotions into powerful speeches: Gwen Walz wasn’t the only one who teared up at Hillary Clinton’s speech. But during the stories of reproductive nightmare, I imagined Walz might get up out of her seat to comfort the young people onstage. She looked so pained during those speeches — and then, so genuinely excited by the second-night rhetoric. You know. Like a regular person.

I’ve read about her engagement as Minnesota’s First Lady, her policy agenda, her own office, and I anticipate she will continue to seek that kind of input as the wife of the vice president, but that was not on display Monday night, nor should it have been. And on Tuesday, in an appearance at the DNC’s Rural Council event, she hinted at how steep the learning curve is for a national candidate and his wife. “It’s been a little over a week since we joined the ticket,” she told the audience. “We are learning a lot. And I just want to thank you for your patience and your help as we do that. I can’t tell you how much it means.”

Wouldn’t you want to talk to someone like that, someone who can be vulnerable and honest about their feelings? That’s the funny thing about empaths; they might as well have “welcome” tattooed on their foreheads, because they instinctively acknowledge feelings, their own and others’ — which aligns nicely with all the big-picture talk about moving forward not back, about pursuing the greater good rather than individual gain.

Oddly, Gwen Walz reminds me of the comic Alex Edelman, which will make anyone who’s heard of both of them think I’ve lost my mind. Edelman is the antithesis of Walz — a younger, East Coast, urban Jewish guy who’s as gregarious as Walz is composed — yet they intersect at empathy because it’s been ingrained in them both, from opposite sides of the American experience.

Edelman’s one-man show, “Just For Us,” a Tony-award winner and Emmy nominee, raises the question of how far empathy should extend, which Edelman ponders when he infiltrates a meeting of white nationalists. He wonders if he’s hit the outer limits by trying to stand in other people’s shoes, if he might lose himself along the way.

Spoiler alert (it’s on MAX): He doesn’t. Walz won’t, either, because truly empathic people often come equipped with a steel spine.

That came up on the second night of the convention as well, when Michelle Obama referred to “the steel of her spine” when describing Harris.

Good listeners with backbone. It’s hardly a platform plank, but it feels just as important.

Karen Stabiner, of Santa Monica, Calif., is a journalist and author.