Right-wing activists have gone all the way back to 2006 to uncover a purported example of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, running mate to Vice President Kamala Harris, making false claims about his background, reported The New York Times on Monday.
Specifically, "The right-leaning Minnesota outlet Alpha News and the conservative publication The Washington Free Beacon resurfaced reports from 2006 that, while Mr. Walz was running for Congress that year, his website inaccurately stated that he had been named 'Outstanding Young Nebraskan by the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce.'"
In reality, Walz's campaign had meant to say he received the award from the Nebraska Junior Chamber of Commerce, whereas the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce endorsed his Republican opponent.
At the time, the website was updated with a correction after the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce sent the campaign a letter, and Walz's campaign manager blamed the confusion on an accidental typo.
This is the latest effort by Republicans to try to uncover something tangible to attack about Walz, an Army National Guardsman of two decades, teacher, and high school football coach prior to serving in Congress and as governor.
"Republicans have been highlighting small inaccuracies in Mr. Walz’s past descriptions of his résumé," reported the Times.
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One of the major lines of attack being used by Republicans thus far, including the Trump campaign itself, is to accuse Walz of misrepresenting his military service. The two main points of contention are that the Harris campaign described him as a "retired Command Sergeant Major," a rank he did serve as but did not retire with for procedural reasons; and that he described AR-style semiautomatic rifles as "weapons of war that I carried in war," when he did not serve in a combat zone.
Chris LaCivita, former President Donald Trump's campaign manager, was the mastermind behind the infamous "Swift Boat" attacks in the 2004 presidential campaign, where a series of Vietnam veterans cast doubt on the record of then-presidential candidate John Kerry, a decorated war hero. However, the line of attack this time has faced sharp pushback from some veterans' groups, forcing the Trump campaign itself to correct its descriptions of the military service of Republican lawmakers going after Walz.
