Minnesota GOP leader sounds alarm on Walz trying to 'bamboozle' rural voters: 'Bernie Sanders in flannel'
By: Andrew Miller (Fox News)
Bernie Sanders in flannel. Great line and it hits the mark.
(Disclosure for the peanut gallery: I supported Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election. The nomination of Clinton convinced me it was time to wave goodbye to the Democratic Party. It's not worth it trying to apologize for the party of slavery, Jim Crow, and segregation if Hillary Clinton is the best the party has. I have also not hidden the fact that I feel Donald Trump is a buffoon, a clown, a carney barker who can't string three words together into a coherent thought.)
A pox on both your parties.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
DULUTH, Minn. — The Republican Party chair of a rural county in central Minnesota is blasting the prevalent media narrative that Gov. Tim Walz is a "moderate" and tells Fox News Digital that rural voters across the country are being "bamboozled" by that talking point.
"I do have a message for most of our rural people here and anybody else that may be watching this, please, you're getting hoodwinked," Lowell Smith, a state college educator and chair of the Crow Wing County GOP in Brainerd, Minnesota, told Fox News Digital.
"You're getting bamboozled. He's lying to you. He is not for rural America. He only cares about very liberal policies that would be embraced by the elite. He's not for us. He's basically - you can't remember who said it, but he really is Bernie Sanders [in] flannel. They're trying to market him as not being that. But he's a liberal just dressed in flannel. He's against the Second Amendment. He's not for rural America."
Smith continued, "Gov. Walz's values do not align with much of rural Minnesota at all or for much of rural America. He kind of originally ran to try and be a moderate, but every policy he has taken, everything that he has done since being elected has been ultra liberal and nothing has reflected that he's a moderate at all, so it made perfect sense that Kamala Harris picked him to be her running mate."
Smith told Fox News Digital that when he speaks to rural voters in Minnesota, "everybody's really angry" about Walz "letting the state burn for about four days" during the George Floyd riots in 2020 that caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damage.
A rural GOP chair in Minnesota told Fox News Digital that Gov. Tim Walz is trying to "bamboozle" rural voters.
Additionally, Smith pointed to the tax policy and business climate under Walz in Minnesota and said that Democrats in control of the state have "squandered" a $17 billion surplus under Walz's leadership.
The right-leaning Tax Foundation's State Business Tax Climate Index for 2024, which was published in October 2023, ranked Minnesota as having the 44th best tax climate for businesses in the country.
An analysis published by the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy in January found that Minnesota's tax code was the most progressive of all 50 states, with only the District of Columbia having a more progressive tax code.
"In Minnesota, we respect our neighbors and their personal choices that they make," Walz told a Philadelphia crowd about abortion during his introduction as Vice President Harris' vice presidential pick. "Even if we wouldn't make the same choice for ourselves, there's a golden rule: Mind your own damn business."
Smith told Fox News Digital that rural voters in Minnesota take issue with that claim given Walz's record on COVID, which he has been widely criticized for by Republicans.
"His policies did not reflect that at all," Smith said. "He set up a tip line to where, basically, you could snitch off your neighbor if they were not wearing their mask, or they kept their business open and there would be civil fines attached to that."
"So, that was kind of reminiscent for up here back in communism when you had family members spying on family members and that is not what us in rural Minnesota really believe in."
Smith told Fox News Digital that residents in his county colloquially refer to Walz as "Tampon Tim" due to his policies on transgender issues, including allowing menstrual products to be placed in school bathrooms across the country, including boys' bathrooms. Democrats have pushed back against that line of attack, but Smith says Walz has essentially made Minnesota a "sanctuary state" for transgender issues.
"Embracing that transgender ideology, so much so that he's made Minnesota a sanctuary state to where if you're a minor in Iowa, South Dakota, North Dakota, and your parents do not agree with you, you can drive into Minnesota, then at that point, for lack of a better term, Minnesota can take possession of you and allow you to get that transgender surgery or health care without your parents' consent or even knowledge," Smith said. "Even in Minnesota, if your child is gender confused, the state may step in and take your child and allow health care directives to be directed toward your child against the parent's wishes. This just does not sit well with us up here."
Smith told Fox News Digital that residents around Brainerd are so fed up with Walz's policies that a local business along Highway 10 in Royalton, Minnesota, put up a sign seen by thousands of motorists showing Walz with his head inserted in his rear end that reads, "Gov. Walz, Northern MN is trying to see things from your point of view. Sponsored by Rocks & Cows of the North."
The "Rocks & Cows" refers to a comment made by Walz in 2017 about rural America that the Trump campaign has seized on, but some say was taken out of context.
Fox News Digital asked Smith what issues rural voters in his county tell him they are most concerned about in the November election.
"The top three issues that we hear first and foremost is our budget nationally as far as our money," Smith explained. "We want to ensure that we have a strong economy, and that does not look to be going that well. The next thing will be control of crime. Crime is rampant through most of the democratically controlled areas and people want to be safe in their neighborhoods and in their homes."
"Lastly would be the control of the border, which would be the massive flood, or what we hear up here, as they call it, an invasion from other countries into our country every week. Those are the three things that I hear most from the people in our county."
Fox News Digital reached out to the Harris-Walz campaign for comment but did not receive a response.
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I live in the Minnesota 1st Congressional district. And I've voted for Tim Walz a couple of times. For his House campaigns, Walz tried to play up being a good ol' boy. Guns, beer, sports. But it became pretty apparent that Walz was a fake. At the end Walz couldn't hold his House seat so he bailed to run for Governor. Voters in the Twin Cities are rather gullible but they do catch on. It wasn't clear that Walz could hold the governor's mansion this election so the VP gig came at an opportune time. Walz gets to cut 'n run again.
There is no term limit in MN and no indication that sans the VP offer he wouldn't be "homeless Tim" again though 2028.
Au contraire. And, that statement is a lie. Changing one's opinion and policy-making ideology on guns does not make one against guns (or its second amendment).
Tim Walz’s Bumpy Road to Gun Control
The vice-presidential candidate wasn’t always tough on firearms. When he ran for Minnesota governor,
he tried to recast a legislative record that had gotten high marks from the N.R.A
When he first began campaigning for governor, gun control was not the front-and-center issue that it would become. A news story about his intention to run in March 2017 said “he expects to talk on the campaign trail about the importance of funding public schools and investing in critical transportation infrastructure.”
That changed in October, when a man using a bump stock to simulate automatic fire killed 60 people at a Las Vegas music festival. Mr. Walz’s opponents pounced. After another candidate for governor, State Representative Erin Murphy, challenged Mr. Walz to give back the $18,000 he had gotten from the N.R.A., he said he would donate it to a veterans charity. He also cosponsored legislation to ban bump stocks, called for a select committee on gun violence prevention and urged other reforms.
“Now it’s time to move on and actually make some progress on this issue,” he wrote on Facebook. “Let me be clear: I’ve got the credibility to bring gun owners to the table in St. Paul to get this done.”
After the Parkland school shooting left 17 dead, Mr. Walz joined other Democrats in cosponsoring a bill to ban assault weapons. In explaining his decision, he said he was influenced in part by his daughter, Hope, who implored him to make a difference.
“Like America, I’ve seen enough of this,” he said in a video. “I’ve seen enough of this carnage.”
Mr. Walz prevailed in the primary, defeating four other candidates with 41 percent of the vote, and won the general election in November. As governor, he followed through with many of the gun proposals he had talked about during his campaign.
In addition to the expanded background checks and the red-flag law allowing the police to disarm potentially dangerous people, he approved legislation increasing penalties when an ineligible person uses someone else to purchase a gun on his or her behalf, and banning a trigger device that increases the firing capacity of semiautomatic weapons. Gun safety groups tend to consider Minnesota’s firearms laws good but not exceptional. It does not have bans on assault weapons or high-capacity magazines, although Mr. Walz has said he would consider them if they were brought up in the Legislature.
Mr. Walz’s current positions put him largely in line with Vice President Kamala Harris, who has frequently called for stronger nationwide restrictions on firearms. And his record during six years as governor has left some former adversaries convinced of his change of heart.
“He evolved, and that’s what we like to see in our elected officials,” Ms. Otto said last week. “Only he knows why, but I do think it was for the right reasons.”
Mike McIntire , an investigative reporter, has been with The Times since 2003.
He who? And what does the 2nd Amendment have to do with Bernie Sanders in flannel?
Just another attempt to spin the cat.
Walz, didn't you read the screed you seeded?
So another left wing radical that still doesn't get that guns don't kill people, people kill people.
And, criminals don't obey laws.
Finally Democrats do love their criminals. They want to ensure the only people that have weapons are criminals and the government.
So, another right wing radical who believes gun ownership is a god given right because some men wrote it on a piece of paper 250 years ago?
Correct.
Just imagine my retort to that nonsense...it will save me the ticket.
Well gee, maybe the 39 to 40,000 US deaths annually might persuade a logical person that there are too many guns in circulation period. The going rate is 3.96 people out of every 100,000 Americans will die because of an ass with a gun.
Just across the 5,525-mile-long Canadian border that statistic is 0.47
while across the pond in the motherland it's 0.04 per 100,000 deaths.
Are you saying we can't do better than Canada and the UK where only the criminals, rebels, police and army have guns?
0.019 in the 27 nation European Union; are you saying we cant do better than those NATO / EU pussies?
Fortunately, those old white men left us two processes to amend that piece of paper.
Correct, the almost hopeless process of getting any Amendment through the process especially when it involves grown up toys.
and another Civil War.
If we don’t like either process to amend, then amend the process or just keep wringing hands.
The more i read about walz the more i think he’s a complete pos. He’s definitely not the “moderate” some claim he is.
He was when he needed votes in a rural congressional district. To when the state he had to shift positions to accommodate his urban centers.