TEFLON TIM

• There’s a reason Republicans keep accusing Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), the Democratic veep pick, of being secretly good at making Mexican food, following his self-deprecating joke about making bland “White guy tacos.” It’s because nothing else they’ve tried to bring down his poll numbers has worked. They’re looking for something, anything, to undermine his Midwestern, folksy charm. The point of their curious taco attack line, apparently, is to paint him as a liar by pointing out that [big reveal!] he actually claimed first prize in a 2016 congressional cooking contest with an entry entitled, “Tim’s Turkey Taco Tot Hotdish,” that did include green chiles. These attacks are, of course, beyond preposterous. In politics, when the other side goes after you for secretly making one helluva hotdish… it means they’re grasping at straws.

• They’re grasping at straws because Americans keep telling pollsters that Walz comes across as a lot more authentic and likable than the GOP veep pick, Sen. JD Vance (R-OH). About a third (36 percent) have a positive view of Walz, while only about a quarter (27 percent) have a positive view of Vance. More Americans say Walz has “an authentic connection to everyday Americans” than Vance (43 percent vs 35 percent).

• But many still don’t know Walz or Vance yet, and the GOP is racing to define Walz before he can properly introduce himself. But unfortunately for them, he gets his biggest chance yet to do that tonight at the Democratic national Convention. He’s expected to talk about his “small town values,” as a former high school football coach, and about his 24 years in the National Guard. Walz successfully ran for Congress in 2005, and then for Governor of Minnesota in 2018.

• They’ve got another line of attack that, on the surface, would appear more promising: they’re accusing Walz of committing “stolen valor” by misrepresenting his military record. Vance is leading the charge. “What bothers me about Tim Walz is the stolen valor garbage,” Vance said recently. Fifty Congressional Republicans followed up on Wednesday with a letter accusing Walz of misrepresenting his service.

• But when the New York Times evaluated this claim, by consulting experts on military service records, none of them found that Walz committed the kind of “stolen valor” the GOP keeps bellowing about. The experts concluded that Vance did make some claims that appeared to misrepresent his record or, at least, which were imprecise. But his misstatements include, for example, stating that he “carried a weapon of war in war,” when in fact he was stationed in Italy during the invasion of Afghanistan. His campaign said he misspoke, and he typically says he served “in support” of that mission. It’s not quite the damning stuff the GOP would like voters to think — especially when you consider the kind of egregious behavior and statements they’ve already excused from disgraced former President Trump.

• Trump famously avoided serving in the Vietnam War draft by claiming to have bone spurs (…right!). He later brutally disparaged the service of an real-life war hero and torture victim, the late Senator John McCain. Just last week, Trump enraged military leaders by whimsically denigrating Congressional Medal of Honor winners as typically “in very bad shape because they’ve been hit so many times by bullets or they’re dead.” He called Americans who died in war “losers,” according to his own former Chief of Staff. And it’s not just Trump: one of the 50 signatories to that GOP letter attacking Walz, Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX), misrepresented himself in that very letter as a “retired Rear Admiral.”

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