Tim Walz Delivered the Best Speech of the Convention (So Far)

Remarks so good, they actually make me want to analyze them

Tim Walz was reportedly chosen as the Vice Presidential nominee in part because he said he didn’t want to run for president one day. After last night’s speech, I think a lot of Republicans are very much hoping he doesn’t change his mind.

I was expecting Walz to be good. But I wasn’t sure. He’s been very open (refreshingly so) about not having given big teleprompter speeches to giant crowds. You could tell the campaign felt somewhat the same way I did - part of the reason for having Oprah is that if you’re VP nominee gives a speech that’s good but not great, then you have a backup big-deal speech to be a highlight of the night.

Oprah was great. Really great. So I think the highest compliment I can pay to Tim Walz’s set of remarks was: they were good enough that Oprah wasn’t necessary. The point of a convention is to win elections. And by the standard I think that - as incredible as both of the Obamas were, as joyful as Oprah was, as impressive as Pete Buttigieg and Wes Moore were, powerful as everyday Americans sharing their stories have been - Tim Walz’s speech was far and away the best of the convention’s first three nights.

I’ve spent a decent amount of time this week talking about technical speechwriter-y stuff craft-y, and sometimes it gets a little receptive. But these remarks were so good that they made me actually want to dig into it and think more about what made they so effective.

STORY AND ARGUMENT

A lot of speakers like telling stories. A lot speakers like getting applause. A lot of speakers like telling us their opinions. But most speakers don’t do all three. Or they do them in chunks - here’s the story, here’s the policy, here’s the contrast, etc etc. Last night, Walz braided all story, excitement, and argument together - it was like a trio harmonizing, where sometimes one theme takes the center and sometimes another, but they’re all happening all the time, and they all work together.

He started with his own upbringing, his decision to get into public service, but never lost sight of the broader point - to get people to vote for Kamala Harris. Everything he did was in support of that broader point. But then, when he got more into policy, he never lost track of his own story and biography. (Case in point, when he said about Project 2025 something along the lines of “take it from a football coach, if you write up a playbook, you’re going to use it.”)

SPEAKER AND SPEECHWRITER

Many speakers have one of two misconceptions about working with a speechwriter. The first is that the speechwriter is basically a transcriptionist, there to put on paper what they already say or think. The second misconception is that the speechwriter is the author, creating life stories and compelling arguments from scratch.

In truth, for a speech to be great, the speaker and speechwriter have to work together. Speakers need to know who they are, and the contours of their own stories. No one can invent that stuff for you. At the same time, speechwriters need to be able to organize that information, coax detail and stories out of the principals, and add lines and moments that punctuate the speech and tie it all together.

I won’t share the name of the speechwriter who worked on this speech because I’m not sure if they’d be comfortable with that. But this person did an excellent job. And Tim Walz did an excellent job, too. You could tell that he’s told his story before, and that he knows how to tie that story to his values and policy goals. His style was clear: it wouldn’t be too difficult, after reading that speech, to figure out whether a proposed line was something he would or wouldn’t say.

At the same time, there were moments where you could tell a writer was involved. For example: when Walz said “Never underestimate a public schoolteacher” it was a huge applause line. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s said something like that before. But the placement of that line - it had been a while since the last huge applause moment, and it would be a while before the next one - was where a great speechwriter comes in. That line became more than a line, it was like giving everyone in the audience a shot of adrenaline, re-upping the energy in the room to peak levels for the next several minutes, and by doing so buying time for less full-tilt, but very important, pieces of the speech.

Then there were lines like (paraphrasing I think: “Where other states were banning books in their schools, we were banishing hunger from ours.” That’s a very line-y line - but it worked because the delivery was great, it was the kind of construction used sparingly, and because it was punchy and well-written. The end results was something that was simultaneously authentic and polished.

This is all even more impressive when you think about the fact that Walz hasn’t never had to work with a speechwriter on a speech like this before.

MIDDLE AND BASE

I heard a few people on television use the phrase “mobi-suasion” to describe what they thought effective messaging looks like. Basically the theory is that by firing up your base, undecided voters - impressed by how enthusiastic your supporters are - decide to support you, too.

This is a great argument if you want to justify doing stuff that gets a big response on the internet and from people who already like you. Which is cathartic and makes you feel cool. But it’s not a good idea if you want to win elections.

And it’s a false choice. Last night, Tim Walz reminded us that you don’t have to speak to the base *or* the middle. You can do both.

We saw that with his talk of Project 2025. We saw that as he spoke about he and his wife’s struggle with infertility, which affects people regardless of how they vote. And we saw it when he spoke directly to undecided voters, explaining what Harris would do for them as president. Each of those moments got incredible reactions from the crowd - it’s hard to imagine a more fired-up base. But the choice of topics was focused on what swing voters care most about. That’s how it’s done.

HARRIS AND WALZ

It’s easy to overlook how challenging an assignment Walz and his speechwriter had last night, because they made it look so easy. But one of the biggest challenges is that he wasn’t speaking on his own behalf. He had to introduce himself to America and make everyone excited about him - in a way that made people want to vote for Kamala Harris.

He threaded that needle expertly. Any time we’d gone a minute or two without mentioning the nominee, he brought it back to her. And it never felt forced - in fact, it emphasized the idea that despite one of them being a daughter of two non-white immigrants from a big California city, and the other being a white man from a small midwestern town, they shared the same set of American values. A lot of swing voters identify, demographically and biographically, with Tim Walz as much or more than they do with Harris. Walz did a great job of telling those voters that if he appeals to you, then she should appeal to you as well.

Then there was the pep talk. Being a high school coach might be the one way to make it acceptable to use an extended sports analogy in a speech, and Walz ran with it. But he was very precise - he described a team with Kamala as the field general, and everyone else, himself included, doing the blocking and tackling. That was a smart rhetorical device from a future Vice President - it shows that he understands the assignment, and can execute on it without looking meek.

HE KEPT IT SHORT

Just sixteen minutes. Perfect.