Tim Walz + Prince (+ a Whole Ton of Other People) = The New Democratic Party
By Margaret Hawkins
August 31, 2024
Troy Gua, from the “Le Petit Prince” series, puppet, installation, photograph. © Courtesy of the artist.
After the wild and somewhat touching ride through the tunnel of doom that was the Republican convention, I expected the Democrats to put on a boring show. I thought it would be educational, like a film strip in fourth grade. Wow was I wrong. Residing as I do just north of Chicago, the emotional wave emanating from the nearby United Center naturally amplified what we all saw on TV.
The frisson moment for me happened during the fabulous musical roll call. I was cooking dinner and dancing solo, trying to keep it down while my husband taught online in another room. I was guessing songs for states. Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down” for Florida, perfect. Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5” for Tennessee, yes. When Minnesota popped up and three exquisite notes played, it took me a second to reconcile the image of Tim Walz’s goofy face with the superb rock and roll memory surfacing in my brain. Then frisson hit. It was that famous Minnesotan, Prince!
Howard Terpning, “Telling of the Legends,” 2014, oil on canvas, 51 x 31”. Courtesy of the artist.
Night One kicked off with a pair of emotionally wrenching goodbyes. First Hillary Clinton, then Joe Biden. Yes, Clinton already said goodbye eight years ago but now that it’s newly possible that a woman is about to be elected president, many needed to say goodbye again. The memory of that disappointment was audible in the epic applause that met Clinton when she walked onstage.
Biden’s goodbye was heart-wrenching. The sight of him dabbing his eyes with a Kleenex as his daughter met him onstage transcended politics, evoking memories of aging parents and friends. I felt an angry flash of protectiveness. Why did they make him wait so long? Despite chants of “Thank you Joe,” it felt disrespectful.
Nick Cave, “The Let Go,” 2018, performance at Park Avenue Armory, New York. Courtesy of Park Avenue Armory. Photo: James Ewing.
Other Night One highlights: Raphael Warnock’s speech rose to a soaring and encompassing ending that embraced the suffering in Gaza. When he walked offstage he looked shaken by his own lofty thoughts. I love that he doesn’t seem like a politician. Jamie Raskin made me laugh out loud with his crack about the weather in DC: “It isn’t just the heat. It’s the stupidity.”
Night Two was all about the Obamas. They remind us of what heights we can reach, and prove that politics and political speeches don’t have to be coarse or stupid or inelegant. Political couples, even when one of them isn’t a politician, can both be stars. But I have to say, Michelle killed. Barack almost didn’t have to speak. Her best moment was when she slammed Trump’s dismissive comment about Black jobs, pointing out that the very job he’s seeking is a Black job.
Some commentators dissed Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker for mentioning his vast inherited wealth, especially following Bernie Sanders’s pleas to get big money out of politics, but hey, it’s a fact. The Democratic Party is a big tent and America is home to many of the richest people in the world. Isn’t it better to have some of them on our side?
Tip Toland, “Drawing #4,” 2024, pencil on paper, 4' x 4' x 1". Courtesy of Traver Gallery, Seattle. Photo by Ann Welch
Unsurprisingly, the warmest speech of the night was Doug Emhoff’s tribute to his wife, which offered a view of Vice President Harris we don’t often see. Spousal tributes are de rigueur, but this one felt especially personal — funny, specific, vulnerable. There was no joking about obsolete gender norms. No need to explain the obvious.
Wednesday night was even better. Pete Buttigieg offered a snapshot of dinnertime at his house. Bill Clinton instructed us not to demean people we disagree with. Hakeem Jeffries compared Trump to a bad boyfriend and did a little rap. Oprah just nailed it. She said that if the childless cat lady’s house were on fire most Americans wouldn’t ask about her politics. They’d pull her out, then go back for the cat. A young man repeatedly pointed out that Coach Walz once pushed him out of a snowdrift. Then Walz strode onstage and blew everyone’s mind with his relatability. Was it stagecraft? Sure, partly. Conventions are theater. But if the Republican convention was a magic show designed to scare as well as dazzle, this felt truly joyful, like a shaft of sunshine as the storm clears. Walz brought a Midwestern sincerity and evident kindness to his acceptance speech, but what brought down the house was the unscripted sight of his son, who suffers from a neurological condition called nonverbal learning disorder (NVLD), weeping with love.
My favorite big-tent moment Wednesday night, though, was the musical lead-in to Walz’s speech. John Legend and an all-woman band, featuring percussionist Sheila E, tore through Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy.”
Albert Bierstadt, “Storm in the Mountains,” 1870, oil on canvas, 38 x 60 1/8”. Courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston.
Thursday was more somber with a notable appearance by four of the long-imprisoned, now-exonerated Central Park Five, the innocent Black men whose execution Donald Trump paid to promote. (He’s never apologized.) The convention culminated with Harris’s forceful, unflashy speech. After all the soaring exuberance, she brought her party down to earth, landing the plane safely without bumps or fancy moves. Quoting her mother’s advice to “never do anything half-assed,” she assured us she would govern accordingly, then launched into a list of priorities that ended in a promise to maintain the “most lethal fighting force in the world.”
I must admit, that one word — lethal — kinda killed the joy vibe, for me. But I’m guessing it was a signal, along with former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta’s appearance earlier that night, that there will be nothing soft about a Harris presidency. It may be just the edge she needs to reassure independents who worry she’s too liberal.
Georgia O’Keeffe, “East River from the 30th Story of the Shelton Hotel,” 1928, oil on canvas, 12 x 32”. Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
The day before the convention started, I saw the Georgia O’Keefe show, “My New Yorks,” at the Art Institute of Chicago. It features early work, not the famous paintings of skulls and flowers, and is worth seeing for the handful of skyscraper paintings made decades before she moved permanently to New Mexico. Noticeably absent is a focus on the artist’s gender. Yes, her career is inextricable from her life with photographer and gallerist Alfred Stieglitz, who gave young O’Keefe her break in New York and eventually married her. His work is included in the show, but the museum does not present her as a “woman artist.”
By mid-convention I made the connection to O’Keefe. Harris, if elected, will not be a woman president. She’ll be president. Hillary got a lot of criticism — she always does; I mean this round — for harping on the glass ceiling. But even if that’s in the past, and I’m not sure it is, we shouldn’t forget the fact that, thanks to Clinton, Harris doesn’t need to mention it.
