2024-08-07
한어Русский языкEnglishFrançaisIndonesianSanskrit日本語DeutschPortuguêsΕλληνικάespañolItalianoSuomalainenLatina
On August 6, US Vice President Harris officially secured the Democratic presidential nomination. She announced that she had chosen Minnesota Governor Waltz as her running mate and attended campaign events together. Why did he become Harris' running mate as a dark horse?
According to analysis, the 60-year-old Waltz is a former high school teacher and American football coach. He comes from a rural background and can speak Chinese. He has a friendly image and can not only win votes from the new generation, but also white votes in rural areas.
Father died of lung cancer
The mother worked for 10 years to pay off the debt
Waltz was born on April 6, 1964 in West Point, Nebraska, a town of only 3,500 people. Waltz grew up in an even smaller village, Butte, with only 400 people, where he farmed and hunted since childhood.
Waltz graduated from Butte High School in 1982. He once introduced himself: "I come from a rural town with only 400 people. There are 24 students in a class, 12 of whom are my cousins. It's that kind of small place."
Waltz's family was not wealthy. His father was a Vietnam War veteran who became the principal of a local school after retiring. His mother was a housewife. There were four brothers and sisters in the family, and life was relatively difficult. When Waltz was 19 years old, his father died of lung cancer, and the family was heavily in debt. His mother had to go out to find a job, and it took her 10 years to pay off the hospital's debt. When he was interviewed, he often recalled how social welfare continued to support his family and how veterans' benefits supported him to go to college.
The death of his father also prompted Waltz to resolve his desire to engage in health care reform. He once said: "My mother has to spend 10 years to pay back the medical expenses of my father's last week of life. This shouldn't be the case!"
After graduating from high school, Waltz joined the U.S. Army National Guard and retired 24 years later as a master sergeant, the highest-ranking soldier ever to serve in Congress.
Honeymoon in China
Taught in Foshan High School for one year
In 1989, Waltz graduated from Chadron State College with a degree in social sciences. That year, Waltz, who had just graduated from college, participated in a Harvard University program and taught in China for a year. That year, he went to Macau at least 6 times and took a 40-hour train to Beijing.
Waltz still speaks a little Mandarin and Cantonese. He taught at the No. 1 Middle School in Foshan, Guangdong Province, teaching American history, culture and English to Chinese high school students. His Chinese students nicknamed him "Big Nose" and "Foreign Devil", but he said that neither of these nicknames was malicious because it was rare for foreigners to come to China at that time.
According to the 2007 financial statements of the U.S. House of Representatives, Waltz also served as a visiting researcher at the Macau Polytechnic University and founded a company called "Educational Travel Adventure Co., Ltd.", which organized an educational trip to China for American high school students every year. The company operated until 2003. He and his wife got married in 1994 and chose China for their honeymoon.
Entering politics because of a student prank,
Won a rural parliamentary seat unexpectedly
Why did Waltz, a high school teacher, choose to go into politics? The report said that the story behind his political career seemed to come from a Hollywood movie. If it weren't for his students who loved to play pranks, he might not have entered politics.
In August 2004, high school teacher Waltz took his students to experience a Democratic Party event. It was the year of the US presidential election, and he took his students to experience the campaign of then-President George W. Bush. But what he didn't know was that the students were plotting to tease the president seeking re-election by wearing Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry's T-shirt under their sweaters. When they arrived at the scene, his students took off their sweaters at the same time, revealing John Kerry's T-shirt, and were kicked out by the US Secret Service personnel on the scene.
Waltz was furious when he saw his students being kicked out, and the next day he went to the Minnesota Democratic Party office to sign up to work as a campaign manager for Kerry's campaign team. By the end of that year, Kerry lost, but Waltz was determined to run for public office himself. At this time, he was in his 40s, and although he had been a teacher and football coach in public schools for more than 20 years, he was still a political novice.
In 2006, Waltz unexpectedly won a rural congressional seat held by the Republicans for 12 years, thanks to his many years of teaching and a large number of students. He has served six terms in Congress since then, winning streaks even as Democrats have slowly lost seats.
“One of my favorite things about him is when I’m in Minnesota, someone comes up to me and says, ‘David taught me geography,’ or ‘He changed my life,’ ” said Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, who volunteered for Waltz’s 2006 congressional campaign. “That’s the way he ran.”
In 2018, Waltz was elected governor of Minnesota, and four years later, he was re-elected.
Called a "traitor" by his comrades
He retired before leading troops to fight in Iraq
At the age of 17, Waltz joined the U.S. Army National Guard and served in the 125th Field Artillery Battalion for 24 years and was promoted to command sergeant major. In 2005, he retired a few months after receiving an order to deploy his troops to Iraq. Later, he turned to politics and was elected to the Minnesota House of Representatives in 2006. He is the highest-ranking soldier ever to serve in Congress.
But 63-year-old retired Command Sergeant Major Berends came forward to reveal that Waltz was actually a "coward" and a "traitor." When he was serving in the Minnesota National Guard, he chose to retire just before he was about to lead his troops to fight in Iraq.
In 2005, Behrends replaced Waltz as command sergeant major and led the Minnesota National Guard to Iraq. He said of his 500 soldiers: "I need to act immediately, take care of the troops and tell them that we are going to war. For someone in my position, it is a sign of cowardice to give up. When your country calls you, you should fight, not run away. Waltz had the opportunity to serve his country, but he ran away. This is not the person I would choose as a vice presidential candidate."
Down to earth and straightforward
Describing Trump and his deputy Vance as "weird"
Waltz is not well-known in the United States. To be honest, even Harris herself is not familiar with him. Harris chose him as her running mate because of his "Midwestern small town guy" image that appeals to rural white voters and his straightforward and friendly style. Waltz is very popular in the Midwest of the United States. Coming from Nebraska and with a rural background, he is expected to attract more white working-class voters for the Democratic Party and consolidate the Democratic Party's "blue wall" state votes.
Unlike other American politicians, Waltz often wears jeans, T-shirts and baseball caps, and is called "American Uncle" by netizens because he is approachable and can always make friends with others quickly. It is believed that when Waltz campaigns for Harris, he is expected to attract ordinary Americans who feel excluded from political discourse.
Waltz has recently been using the word "weird" to describe Trump and his running mate Vance, which has made him more popular online. His easy-to-understand campaign language can easily resonate with the Midwest and the blue-collar class.
Waltz's remarks on television in support of Harris' campaign gradually became the Democratic Party's slogan for attacking the Trump-Vance combination: "Those two people are weird. Just listen to what they say. Aren't their remarks weird? They want to meddle in the family affairs of ordinary Americans, and they don't know what Americans really want. They want to take your books away, and they want to walk into your clinic when you have a physical examination..."
A month ago, Waltz was almost unknown outside of Minnesota, but he has now become a star in the Democratic Party. He had no active political background at the national level before, but he is known for his down-to-earth and straightforward political expression, and his moderate approach is welcomed by many Democrats. After taking office as the governor of Minnesota in January 2019, he actively promoted a number of policies, such as supporting the provision of free school meals and extending paid leave for workers, which made him widely supported.
After the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, Waltz signed the Reproductive Choice Protection Act in 2023, incorporating abortion rights into state law. Abortion rights will be one of the most critical issues in this election and is also seen as the main focus of Harris's next campaign. Waltz's political achievements in this area can help Harris.
Huashang Daily Dafeng News reporter Guo Ji editor Li Zhi
Collect and organize the latest news information and make it available for free for everyone to read
