Ope and Change: Minnesota is just happy to be mentioned as Kamala Harris picks Tim Walz

When Vice President Kamala Harris tapped Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate, it put the national spotlight squarely where it belongs — on Minnesota.

And this time it’s not because it snowed so hard that the roof of one of our stadiums collapsed.

Minnesota, my friends, is having a moment. Come, get to know us better.

First, Suni Lee dazzled in the Olympic gymnastics competition, helping deliver a gold medal to Team USA and winning two individual bronze medals. Now, with Walz’s ascension to the Democratic presidential ticket, Americans everywhere are turning to their maps in search of Minnesota. (We are up here.)

This is it. This is our chance to tell everyone it’s hot dish, not casserole. We can show them our laser loons. Casually mention that this state is home to more than 10,000 lakes, actually; Minnesota just doesn’t like to brag. Now everyone sit down while we tell you about Top the Tater.

There are pundits who will tell you that Minnesota brings little to a national ticket. Ten measly electoral votes from a state that hasn’t given those votes to a Republican president since 1972. One recent poll shows Harris with a comfortable 10-point lead in Minnesota, further evidence that Harris doesn’t need a Minnesotan running mate to carry the state. But maybe the running mate math went out the window when George W. Bush picked a vice president from Wyoming.

Harris, dropped abruptly into the race just months before Election Day, seems to be running primarily on sound bites and vibes. She’s certainly not running on news conferences and in-depth, sit-down interviews.

She had her choice of potential running mates with higher national profiles. She had a potential running mate who spent more than a month in space. It would have been easy to overlook the unassuming, avuncular Walz, a Democrat who won and held a bright red rural congressional district; a governor who took a one-vote legislative majority and used it to pass everything from free school meals for every child in Minnesota to paid family and medical leave to legalized marijuana.

But Walz, as it turns out, is pretty good at vibes and sound bites. With one well-placed word — “weird” — he morphed Donald Trump from a powerful figure of authoritarian dread into Michael Dukakis in a tank. Every time Trump starts droning on about sharks and batteries, America now hears a faint echo of Howard Dean screaming.

As news spread Tuesday, old stories resurfaced, jostling to be the first to introduce Walz to a national audience. Minneapolis in flames. National Guard tanks, deployed by Walz, in the streets. The mug shot from his 1995 drunken driving arrest. It’s not clear how much of a deal-killer that last one would be to anyone currently walking around in a Trump-branded “I’m Voting for the Convicted Felon” T-shirt.

Then, more stories. The high school students he once taught, talking about how he changed their lives. Minnesotans he helped push out of snowy ditches. It was like an early October surprise, if the surprise were the sheer number of times the governor has taken his dog out for ice cream or how much fun he has with his daughter at the Minnesota State Fair.