The Tim Walz pick helps focus on the great things happening here in the Great Lakes region

We are once again growing our economies and making sure the workers who power that growth share in the bounty.

Governor Walz is a superb choice for VP. Some establishment media and the GOP are leaning heavily on old tropes to explain the pick, but that will change as they get to know him. The Republicans want to paint him as a radical, but they can’t. He has cut taxes in every one of his budgets. He has focused state investments in ways that strengthen the economy and make life better for individuals. For example, his billion-dollar investment in housing means that it is easier for young Minnesotans to break into the housing market. A CNBC study ranks Minnesota in the top six states for business. The point is, the attempt by the GOP to portray him as a sharp left turn says more about their relationship to the truth than about his record. Similarly, the initial effort by the media to find a pigeon hole to explain him to the rest of the country will soon give way to the reality of his incredible leadership in the state.

By the way, the folks who were not chosen are also superb. The bench is deep and talented. And they are all in. Seriously, don’t fret. Josh Shapiro is going to do everything he can to deliver Pennsylvania.

I’ve said this before, something special is happening up here in the Great Lakes states. First, Michigan breaks GOP rule. They elect women to all the statewide offices. They break the GOP gerrymander. They start passing legislation that attracts billions in private investment. They invest public funds in infrastructure. They push back against the GOP social agenda, protecting choice and voting rights. Then Wisconsin, the most radically gerrymandered state in the nation, elects a serious person to its Supreme Court and the Court overturns those terrible maps. Now, for the first time in decades, voters in that state will have a real say in their legislature. Likewise, in Minnesota, when Democrats won control, they didn’t bank their political capital, they spent it. The results have been stunning. Not to be left behind, in Ohio, the state democracy seems to have forgotten, voters twice turned back GOP efforts to thwart progress- first by opposing an effort to make it more difficult to change their constitution, then by changing it to protect abortion rights. Now they are fighting to end that state’s gerrymander. It has been a painful journey, but one we shouldered without losing our good nature.

The Great Lakes states are not well understood on the coasts. We provide the industrial power that won two world wars, drove America’s economic dominance, and built the middle class. When changes in technology and short-sighted decisions about globalization hollowed out those industries, we suffered disproportionately. That made this fertile ground for the right wing. But their victories here differed from other places because this is also a region of uncommon decency. Republicans here never won by going all in on the kind of hateful and divisive tactics we see elsewhere. That decency explains why a former Republican Governor of Illinois, Jim Edgar, is leading Republicans for Harris. Meanwhile, Democrats kept faith with workers as they worked to transition to new economic realities. We are not through our struggles, but here by the Great Lakes, we have turned the corner. We are once again growing our economies and making sure the workers who power that growth share in the bounty.

Walz embodies that midwestern journey of decency through adversity and determination to come out better.  Voters are going to love it. The country is going to be better for it.