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The selection of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as Vice President Harris’s running mate and his performance on the campaign trail are not exactly at the top of analysts’ considerations in explaining the outcome of the 2024 presidential election. However, they give us a local hook on a national story and rate high in terms of the amusement factor.

A week before she settled on Walz as her running mate I facetiously urged Harris to “Take My Governor — Please.” When Harris heeded my plea, I argued (forgive me for quoting myself) “[t]he idea that [Walz] can appeal to voters who don’t already support Ms. Harris seems far-fetched.” Writing the day Harris announced her selection of Walz, I may have erred in underestimating Walz’s possibly detrimental impact on Harris’s cause.

Yesterday I looked back on the Walz factor in the Free Beacon column “Tim Walz is returned to sender.” Here I was inspired by the Star Tribune’s hagiographic treatment of Walz throughout the campaign. One would never know from reading the Star Tribune that in the glare of the national spotlight Walz was exposed as a compulsive liar or that he had become a laughingstock.

In Wednesday’s Star Tribune Morning Hot Dish newsletter, political reporter Josie Albertson-Grove posed the question: “Will Walz be a front-runner for 2028? Or will his cable news appearances and VP run just prime him to be the Democrats’ answer to Sarah Palin, an inescapable presence on TV political panels for the next several years?” This falls under the category invented by the Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto: Questions nobody is asking.