Controversy over Walz army document ‘cleary a failure’ of Harris marketing campaign

The Harris marketing campaign didn’t correctly put together for potential assaults on the vice chairman’s working mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, in response to political strategists from each side of the aisle.

“The Walz military record story was clearly a failure of ‘reverse’ opposition research by the Harris campaign,” Democratic strategist Julian Epstein informed Fox News Digital.

The feedback come as Walz has continued to face scrutiny over his army document, with critics accusing the vice presidential candidate of “stolen valor” for seemingly deceptive statements he has made about his service.

Critics have claimed that language Walz has used when describing his time in service had misleadingly steered that he served in a warfare zone, together with one assertion by which he mentioned he want to ban the sort of weapons he had “carried in war,” regardless of having by no means been deployed to a fight zone throughout his 24 years of service.

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In response to the controversy, the Harris marketing campaign mentioned Walz “misspoke” when making the notorious “carried in war” remarks.

“In making the case for why weapons of war should never be on our streets or in our classrooms, the Governor misspoke,” marketing campaign spokesperson Lauren Hitt informed the media. “He did handle weapons of war and believes strongly that only military members trained to carry those deadly weapons should have access to them, unlike Donald Trump and JD Vance who prioritize the gun lobby over our children.”

But the “carried in war” remarks weren’t the one quotes to boost eyebrows, with critics accusing Walz of being deceptive when he boasted of deploying “in support” of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), a deployment that was truly to Italy and to not Afghanistan.

In one other occasion, Walz harkened again to his expertise within the National Guard throughout a speech on the twentieth anniversary of 9/11 earlier than claiming to have “stood one night in the dark of night at Bagram Air Base” and watched the switch ceremony of a soldier’s physique.

While Walz did go to Afghanistan whereas serving in Congress, he didn’t deploy to Afghanistan as a part of his army duties.

Some former members of Walz’s unit, in the meantime, have accused the Minnesota governor of abandoning his troops and retiring to get out of a deliberate deployment to Iraq.

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“When the nation called, he quit. He failed to complete the United States Army Sergeants Major Academy. He failed to serve for two years following completion of the academy, which he dropped out of. He failed to serve two years after the conditional promotion to Command Sergeant Major. He failed to fulfill the full six years of the enlistment he signed on September 18th, 2001. He failed his country. He failed his state. He failed the Minnesota Army National Guard, the 1-125th Field Artillery Battalion, and his fellow Soldiers. And he failed to lead by example. Shameful,” learn an open letter penned by two former members of Walz’s unit forward of his run for governor in 2018 that resurfaced once more this 12 months.

Walz has additionally confronted claims of being deceptive about his rank, at varied factors saying he retired as a command sergeant main, a rank he obtained and served with however didn’t retire as as a consequence of his resolution to not full the required coursework to maintain the rank.

The declare that Walz is a “retired command sergeant major” was additionally featured on the Harris marketing campaign web site, which was later modified to state that he “served” as a command sergeant main.

Such an oversight is one instance of the place the marketing campaign failed, Republican strategist David Polyansky informed Fox News Digital, noting {that a} marketing campaign would sometimes catch such “vulnerabilities.”

“I assume part of this is just the abbreviated nature of it,” Polyansky mentioned, referring to the short timeline between Harris being elevated to the highest of the ticket and selecting a working mate. “But the fact of the matter is it’s one of two things, either in their vetting, in their interviews with him, failed to catch some of those potential vulnerabilities, or they knew it and just failed to adequately prepare for the messaging offensive that was about to come.”

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“Either way… it put them in a tough position on his rollout, put them on the defensive on a vice presidential pick that should have given them an immediate boost,” Polyansky added.

Whether Walz’s army document continues to hang-out the Harris marketing campaign will largely be as much as former President Trump’s working mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, one other army veteran who did serve in Iraq and is “comfortable” together with his service document, Polyansky mentioned.

“You’re going to see [Walz] have to go up on stage and debate against a guy who is pretty comfortable and confident in his military record,” Polyansky mentioned. “I don’t think that’s going to be the final decision-making point for most voters… but the attention it will get in terms of grabbing earned media can cast a little bit of a negative light on Kamala Harris’ decision-making.”

While Epstein agrees that Democrats mistakenly missed the potential controversy on Walz’s document, he argued that Republicans could be higher off avoiding a “tit-for-tat” marketing campaign and focusing as an alternative on Harris’ document.

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“More than anything else, Democrats want to memory-hole the Biden/Harris record of the last four years,” Epstein mentioned. “They want to memory-hole Harris’ fringe left views from just five years ago.”

The Harris marketing campaign didn’t instantly reply to a Fox News Digital request for remark.

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