Given the time constraints, Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris conducted a cautious and orderly process as she vetted her various options for vice president. It was pretty clear by Monday that Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz was going to get her nod over Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, but we were impressed that what is now known as the Harris-Walz campaign avoided leaks. It was a skilled rollout of a man who is well liked by the Democratic Party’s attentive progressive base but who is little known to most Americans.

Indeed, according to an NPR/PBS News/Marist Poll released Tuesday and conducted over the last few days, more than 70% of Americans have no opinion of the 60-year-old Walz, either favorable or unfavorable. That’s a high number, given the focus on the race.

And we’ll wager that had we gone out on the streets of Chicago a month ago, relatively few Chicagoans would even have heard of the 41st governor of Minnesota, a West Point, Nebraska-born graduate of Chadron State College in Chadron, Nebraska; a former member of the U.S. House of Representatives who served for 24 years in the Army National Guard; and an educator who once taught geography and coached football at Mankato West High School in Mankato, Minnesota.

West Point, Nebraska, for the record, has a famous name and a population of 3,459.

As fellow Midwesterners, we congratulate Walz and his family on his ascendancy to this candidacy and note the distinctive nature of that achievement: it is far from easy for the child of a school administrator and community activist in small-town Nebraska to achieve such heights and his biography suggests he did it the hard way, on his own. Whatever your political views, this year’s two vice presidential candidates, the other being JD Vance of Middletown, Ohio, shine a spotlight of those who spent their formative years in bedrock Midwest communities, became undergraduates at public universities and served their country in the military.

Now Walz has to introduce himself and explain his positions to Americans even as his Republican rivals try to fill that gap first.

We’re also waiting for the person at the top of the Democratic ticket this fall, Vice President Kamala Harris, to find some time to answer some independent reporters’ questions on matters of substance. And we are calling for all candidates to arrange the debates that are so important to Americans learning about those who aspire to the nation’s highest offices.

— The Chicago Tribune

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