Fmr Sen. Coleman to Newsmax: Walz 'Gavin Newsom in a Flannel Shirt'

Democrat vice presidential candidate Tim Walz, being touted as someone with rural roots, is nothing more than "Gavin Newsom in a flannel shirt," former Sen. Norm Coleman of Minnesota said on Newsmax Saturday.

"The reality is, when he ran for governor, he got 31% in the most rural district in the state," Coleman, who chairs the Republican Jewish Coalition, said on Newsmax's "America Right Now." "He lost every rural congressional district."

Coleman agreed that Walz is an "affable guy," but said he's lost all key ratings he's had over the years because of his liberal policies. 

"With the NRA, he started out with an A-plus rating; but by the time he was done with his career, after people saw who he was, he got an F," said Coleman. "When he started out, he was born with Midwest values, Midwest sensibility, grew up on a farm in Nebraska, and it all sounds so good."

But "in the end, he'd get an F on Minnesota values, on Midwest values, on common sense," said Coleman. "It's not Midwest values to require fourth-grade boys' bathrooms to have tampons. It's not Midwest values to take an $18 billion surplus and raise taxes by $10 billion and increase the size of government by 40% in one legislative session, and so he gets an F."

He added that people who know Walz best in Minnesota and in rural communities have "made it very clear" that he is not going to carry rural or Midwest values or votes. 

"It's not real," Coleman said. 

Meanwhile, Coleman said he would have had a "little sense of pride" if Democrat presidential candidate Kamala Harris had picked Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro as her running mate, even if he wouldn't have voted for him.

"He's one of our own," said Coleman. "In the end, he wasn't chosen because he's Jewish. There's no question about that. The pro-Hamas, antisemitic wing of the Democratic Party prevailed."

Further, Harris needs Pennsylvania to win the presidency, said Coleman. 

"Instead, you forego a popular Pennsylvania governor for somebody who has geographic diversity, but certainly not political diversity, not policy diversity."

Harris was the "most liberal and radical" senator, but "Tim Walz is to the left of her," said Coleman.

Walz, meanwhile, as Minnesota's governor, "let Minneapolis burn down for three days, let it burn down the third precinct in Minneapolis, and in part because he identified with the burning ... he lets Minneapolis burn down and then Harris bails out the, you know, the arsonist. So they make a good team in that regard."

But in the end, the choice is "pretty simple," said Coleman, as Republicans are "right on policy and they're wrong."​​

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