Yes, there are people who get parasocial about politicians, but often times I think excitement is just the damn bus route: the excitement about thinking a new bus route will go near your house is real, and the disappointment when it doesn’t is likewise.
Not every emotion you feel about a public figure is parasocial. Sometimes it’s just being normal about how an event changes how you live.
Feeing emotions about people who will make big decisions that will change how you and other people live your lives is actually fairly normal.

Kim Hermer, a longtime teacher at Mankato West, recalls that during Walz’s first autumn in town, a group of teachers decided it would be funny to pull a lighthearted prank on the newbie. They printed out a fake gift certificate for a free turkey — a supposed welcome gift from the community that could be collected at the grocery store in town.

“He went down there and left with a free turkey,” Hermer says.

How was he able to pull that off?

“I have no idea,” she says. “That’s just Tim Walz.”

Asked about whether the raft of Minnesota changes would make him too progressive a candidate, Walz joked that he was a “monster” for supporting efforts to fund school lunches and guarantee legal protections for those seeking abortions.

“What a monster. Kids are eating, eating and having full bellies so they can go learn and women are making their own healthcare decisions,” Walz told CNN’s State of the Union in late July. “So if that’s where they want to label me, I’m more than happy to take the label.”

• I think the combined Harris/Walz ticket is a good, solid team.
• VP Harris has a once-in-a-generation chance to upset a lot of things: if we lose a couple, the Supreme Court.
• Inspiration of a new generation of potential leaders.
• The sheer number of Old Republicans who will have absolute coronaries at the situation.
• Yes, she had to follow policy of the state on some shitty things, but she also helped organize the first legal update to remove the gay/trans panic defense as an option from any state law
• They will not do any of the things in Project 2025
• Walz is a former teacher and I bet we get some good education initiatives.
• Mrs. Walz has been an advocate for prison reform in Minnesota, including prisoner education
• When Mr. Walz resigns to take the VP seat, we get the first Native American governor of any state in this country, ever.
• Maybe we get that Democratic landslide and take back the House, preferably sending a bunch of Christian Nationalists into a deep depression for the remainder of their livesa while.

When Mr. Walz resigns to take the VP seat, we get the first Native American governor of any state in this country, ever.

Vice President Kamala Harris and Governor Tim Walz are going to move us forward. They’re already building a campaign to unite our country — and Gabby Giffords and I are ready to do everything we can to help them win.

In May 2004, the San Francisco Chronicle interviewed the city’s embattled district attorney, Kamala D. Harris. “A few months ago, the buzz was that you were a real up-and-comer, destined for statewide office,” a reporter told her. “This could put the kibosh on all of that.”

The reference was to Harris’s decision not to seek the death penalty against a gang member charged with gunning down a police officer. As a candidate for district attorney in 2003, Harris opposed capital punishment (as did both of her opponents). Shortly after her election victory, the Los Angeles Times reported that she “pledged never to seek the death penalty.”

So when Harris announced — days after the killing of officer Isaac Espinoza — that she would not try to execute the killer, there should have been no great surprise. Nonetheless, her swift decision prompted a political revolt that led many of the state’s most powerful Democratic Party politicians to distance themselves from her.

Ms. Walz introduced herself to Minnesotans with an ambitious policy portfolio when her husband became governor in 2019. At the time, the post of the first lady had been vacant for nearly a decade, as the previous governor, Mark Dayton, was unmarried. When Ms. Walz established a physical office in the Minnesota State Capitol just steps away from her husband’s office — which previous first ladies had not done — she made a splash on the political stage with an agenda focused on criminal justice reform and education policy.

She toured state prisons and chaired a task force on reducing recidivism that focused on providing housing and education to former prisoners. As part of her efforts to reform the criminal justice system, she also sought to improve the curricula offered to inmates. Her efforts extended beyond Minnesota too, as she promoted the Bard Prison Initiative, a program in upstate New York that aims to give prisoners a liberal arts education.

“Our commitment to making Minnesota the best state in the nation for children means increasing access to books, not censoring them. Taking books away from kids and schools does not protect our children – it erases many of the stories and voices that do.”

On Saturday, those involved in the process, joined by Harris’ White House Chief of Staff Lorraine Voles, briefed Harris on their findings, discussing each candidate for about an hour to 90 minutes. By that afternoon, Shapiro, Kelly and Walz were invited to the Naval Observatory for one-on-one meetings with Harris, described as a “chemistry test.”

Harris and her staff wanted to take as much time as possible, considering the stakes of the decision and the truncated process she had to employ. Harris told staff on Sunday that she wanted to sleep on it, a person involved in the vetting told POLITICO, adding that Harris made the decision yesterday and told a small set of staff Monday evening.

Harris’ staff was preparing for the possibility that any one of the finalists could be picked. Beginning Sunday, staff prepared videos, messaging memos, stump speeches and website graphics for all three men.

Harris and her staff wanted to take as much time as possible, considering the stakes of the decision and the truncated process she had to employ. Harris told staff on Sunday that she wanted to sleep on it, a person involved in the vetting told POLITICO, adding that Harris made the decision yesterday and told a small set of staff Monday evening.

The DFL’s story first began during the 1920s, when representatives of the Nonpartisan League in Minnesota entered candidates for state election under the Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party. The party’s platform consisted of progressive agrarian reform, the protection of farmers and union workers, the public ownership of railroads, utilities, and natural resources, and social security legislation.

The party earned popularity and legislative legitimacy, even gaining victories in Minnesota State and Congressional elections over candidates of the two major parties. From 1921 to 1941, constituents elected three governors, four U.S. senators, and eight U.S. representatives under the affiliation of the Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party. Then, on April 15, 1944, the party united with the Minnesota Democratic Party to form the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party.

The first DFL governor, Orville Freeman, was elected in 1954. Since then, the DFL Party has earned majorities in the state House and Senate, elected some of our nation’s most respected officials to the U.S. House and Senate, and put DFLers in the White House with Vice Presidents Hubert H. Humphrey and Walter Mondale.

The iron mining area of northern Minnesota traditionally gave considerable support to radical causes. Until the late 1940's, the most influential labor unions in the area advocated massive change in the basic nature of the capitalist system. The radical Western Federation of Miners sporadically organized on the Mesabi iron range in the early twentieth century. The anarcho-syndicalist Industrial Workers of the World dominated range labor thinking from 1915 to 1920, and in the 1930's and 1940's the Mine Mill and Smelter Workers dwarfed other unions of the area. When the Communist Party emerged from splin- tered underground factions in the early 1920's Finnish-Americans, largerly from northern Minnesota, constituted its largest section. Gus Hall, present chairman of the Party, came from this radical Finnish tradition. In 1968 remnants of Minnesota's radical past still existed: the Communist Party placed its presidential candidate on the state ballot; an IWW shell functioned in Minnesota's iron country publishing a Finnish language radical newspaper; Minneapolis remained a center of Trotskyist activity; and the Socialist Labor Party still functioned in the state.

A hotdish or hot dish is a casserole dish that typically contains a starch, a meat, and a canned or frozen vegetable mixed with canned soup. The dish originates in the Upper Midwest region of the United States, where it remains popular, particularly in Minnesota, South Dakota, Wisconsin, North Dakota, and eastern Montana. Hotdish is cooked in a single baking dish, and served hot (per its name). It commonly appears at communal gatherings such as family reunions, potlucks, and church suppers. A classic example known as "tater tot hotdish" is made with ground beef, topped with tater tots, and flavored with thick, condensed cream of mushroom soup sauce.

Hotdish for the uninitiated
posted by nathan_teske at 7:23 AM on August 6 [9 favorites −] [⚑]

"I thought I liked things that were weird, but I was wrong. This book was too weird for me. I feel nauseous just thinking about the horrifying psychosis contained within. I'm legally changing my name to ‘Normal Al' now and pushing all my Hawaiian shirts out to sea on a barge. Avoid this book at all costs!!" —"Weird Al" Yankovic

He accepted a temporary teaching position at the Native American Reservation in Pine Ridge, South Dakota. It was this experience that convinced Tim to follow his father’s lead and become a teacher.

When the students finished with the past, Mr. Walz gave a final exam of sorts. He listed about a dozen current nations — Yugoslavia, Congo, some former Soviet republics among them — and asked the class as a whole to decide which was at the greatest risk of sliding into genocide.

Their answer was: Rwanda. The evidence was the ethnic divide between Hutus and Tutsis, the favoritism toward Tutsis shown by the Belgian colonial regime, and the previous outbreaks of tribal violence. Mr. Walz awarded high marks.

Then summer arrived and school let out. The students did what teenagers did in Alliance over the summer. They water-skied at the reservoir, swam in the Bridgeport sand pits and mostly “cruised the Butte,” endlessly driving up and down Box Butte Avenue.

THE next April, in 1994, Mr. Walz heard news reports of a plane carrying the Rwandan president, Juvenal Habyarimana, being shot down. He told himself at the time, “This is not going to end up good.”

> But how is Al Yankovic gonna rebrand?

> How about Cool Al Yankovic, because that guy is a total mensch!

[d]uring the session with reporters, Mr. Vance bemoaned what he called a “little switcheroo” from President Biden to Ms. Harris and cast doubt on whether Mr. Walz would remain Ms. Harris’s running mate.

> In other news, I'm not into cooking whatsoever, I try to stick to "five ingredients at max" things, and I'm seriously considering trying to make up my own hotdish recipe.

Couldn't help it. Made a campaign sign for Orange Goblin/Couch Fucker.

Maybe Al Yankovic can just rebrand himself entirely, like Prince did, and change his name to an emoji. (perhaps an accordion, or a cheese sandwich).

In fairness to Ms. Harris, it would be challenging for any Democrat today to advance a clear agenda for the future. Mr. Biden struggled to do so in his re-election campaign. The party has held power for almost 12 of the last 16 years, and it has exhausted much of its agenda; there aren’t many popular, liberal policies left in the cupboard. [What???] As long as voters remain dissatisfied with the status quo and the Democratic nominee, a campaign to defend the system might not be the slam dunk Democrats once thought it was.

But only one is a former high school football coach: Mr. Walz. It’s an identity that has stuck over the years.

Why does that matter? Because football may be the last remaining unifying force in a deeply divided America.

Of the hundred most-watched network TV programs last year, 93 were N.F.L. games. Universities collectively draw hundreds of thousands of spectators to their stadiums, in red states and blue. And high school contests under the lights on Friday nights shut down entire towns.

Football is our civic religion. I grew up watching the Giants every week with my grandfather and father. Today I watch RedZone every Sunday with my teenage son over pizza. Millions of other American fathers and sons spend their weekends this way.

For us, football is a common language, a way of understanding the world and what it takes to be successful. In this cosmos of heroes and villains, the coach looms large.
..
This background — as a coach, and as a member of the armed services — helped him represent a blue-collar swing congressional district in Congress. He was re-elected in the red wave year of 2010 and ran nearly 15 points ahead of Mr. Trump’s winning margin in his district in 2016 — one of the highest margins of overperformance in the country.

Put simply, Mr. Walz has a record of earning support from precisely the kinds of voters Democrats need to retain the White House.

At the Republican convention last month, Mr. Trump showcased a wrestler and an ultimate fighting championship executive. Mr. Trump understands the value of strength in politics. Imagine a Democratic convention in which Tim Walz is introduced by former players who can attest to his character in supporting and guiding them to victory on the field and in life. That’s an inspiring brand of toughness. Bill Clinton reminds us that “strong and wrong” beats “weak and right.” With Ms. Harris and Mr. Walz, Democrats can own right and strong.

Mr. Walz could then begin a running conversation with voters, particularly young men, throughout the fall about football — high school, college and pro. The blue wall states Harris must win, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, are football crazy. Park Mr. Walz in them and let him crisscross the states, hopscotching from tailgates to watch parties. Put him on podcasts and talk radio that focus on football.

Walz also has been a case study in confronting that which other Democrats and liberals regarded as kryptonite — charges and allegations that anyone progressive is nothing more than a socialist, communist, or now, a Marxist. Despite those three labels’ important political differences, Walz hasn’t gotten flummoxed by the charges. Instead, he’s said that if by taking care of neighbors, the elderly, building roads and fixing schools is considered any of those things, then maybe; but, really that’s what Americans do to not just make America great, but to keep it that way.

If Montana couldn’t look at the Harris campaign and see glimmers of itself before, it can now.

We knocked on every door when the #HKHRDA lacked momentum. Only Walz answered his: At its absolute lowest point in 2017–18, he was the sole House Democrat willing to keep co-sponsoring the bill — seemingly a fruitless endeavor — with Smith...

And how many people in Congress — let alone a busy ranking member of the Veterans’ Affairs Committee — would so diligently be tracking political prisoners in Tibet since the 2008 uprising?

Walz is perhaps the most solid candidate when it comes to human rights and China on a major-party ticket in recent memory — if not ever. All in all, he’s also an effective, articulate, genuine champion of progressive values and policies.

“I couldn’t be prouder to be on this ticket,” Walz said to an excited crowd that numbered more than 12,000, according to the Harris campaign. “Thank you for bringing back the joy.”

“Kamala Harris has been such a disastrous vice president of this country that everywhere she goes, chaos and uncertainty follow,” he said. Vance’s rally was held shortly after noon at the 2300 Arena in South Philadelphia, and drew a crowd of more than 200 supporters.

I hope Harris and Vance come up with something other than "we're not going back" for their official/main slogan. I think it's fine as one of their catchphrases, but they need something more positive for the official one.

According to sources it was close until she asked the VP hopefuls to define positraction and only Walz knew it’s a limited slip differential which distributes power equally to both the right and left tires. The '64 Skylark had a regular differential, which, anyone who's been stuck in the mud in Minnesota knows, you step on the gas, one tire spins, the other tire does nothing.