![]() Walz believes polls saying Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden is up by as much as 7 percentage points in Minnesota, but he warns that President Donald Trump is capable of closing the gap. Neither one trusts the other and that creates an untenable situation.” Walz said the eruption of protests, some of which turned violent, in the wake of Floyd’s May 25 death can be understood only in the context of yearslong animosities between minorities and the Minneapolis police: “The faith between the police and those they govern is broken and vice versa. While Walz talked in an unhurried way, his stocky black lab mix, Scout, sniffed and roamed with an impatient, proprietary air.Įxtended excerpts of the interview are below. So an in-person interview it was, on a sunny but temperate late-summer day. Scott Fitzgerald lived - has a spacious patio with plenty of room to distance. But the Minnesota governor’s residence on Summit Avenue - a few hundred yards down the street from where F. He’s not that great with Zoom, a staff aide warned. This conflict between the self-conception of many Minnesotans and the actual facts of Minnesota life was the recurring theme of an hourlong conversation with the 56-year-old Walz. It may still tilt progressive, but there are agitated voices, rising steadily in volume, on both the left and right. In 2020, the state has been violent, not peaceful. What happened in 2020 is a collision between that pleasant myth and starkly unpleasant reality. On the surface, Walz’s words seem like a perfectly sensible approach for sensible Minnesota - a place that in its own mythology is uncommonly peaceful and progressive, a culturally centered place in the center of the nation. “But I also think - especially when you’re in an executive position - I still believe our system of checks and balances and compromise created a better, fairer system that worked, and I do not see this oscillation amongst extremes being a better way of governing.” “She’s a little more, ‘They mistake your kindness for weakness and don’t ever do that,’” Walz said of his spouse’s views about the yearning for a collegial bipartisan center she believes is illusion. By most evidence, they are little interested in helping Walz carry out the cheerful “One Minnesota” vision he campaigned on. ![]() Is Walz living in a fantasy? Or, more generously, in the past? Even Gwen Walz, the governor’s wife and a high school English teacher, sometimes worries that he is, at least when it comes to dealing with his Republican adversaries. (CHRIS MCDUFFIE for POLITICO) Editor’s Note: Images may not be republished beyond original publication without further licensing. 4, 2020 at the Governor’s Residence in St. Walz tinkers with his 1979 International Harvester Scout photographed Sept. The Democrat, a former teacher and member of Congress who won the governorship in 2018, believes he is a reasonable guy who, if he has a chance to sit down and chat with most folks, he can persuade them to be reasonable, too. The governor’s reference to “trying to be out there” in “conversations” with critics is the essence of the Walz political style. Minnesota is a state that has regarded itself as exceptional for its congeniality and healthy civic culture but now finds instead that it is vividly emblematic of the rancor and institutional failures across the country. Walz spoke at a time when he’s making local decisions with decidedly national resonance, given the reckoning on race and systemic inequality that followed Floyd’s killing. Walz’s comments came in an interview for “The Fifty,” a POLITICO series exploring the intersection among states, cities and national politics. ![]() It’s these conversations I’m in with Black leadership and trying to be out there.” And we need to not just think about it - which we’re doing - the physical security of it. “I think certainly if the verdict comes out a not guilty verdict on that, it will be challenging. ![]()
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