Surrounded By Ivy League Grads, Walz Attacks Vance Over Yale

CHICAGO — The third night of the Democratic National Convention felt less like a political assembly and more like a school pep rally as Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a retired teacher and assistant football coach, formally accepted the vice-presidential nomination. This was by design.

“It is the fourth quarter. We’re down a field goal. But we’re on offense,” Walz said at the end of an evening that featured a band, football players, and a crowd nearly ready to run through a brick wall. “We’re driving down the field. And, boy, do we have the right team to win this.”

Relatively unknown outside his home state until weeks ago, Walz had clearly done his homework to make the most of his first national moment. He reportedly had never used a teleprompter until Vice President Kamala Harris invited him to join the national ticket. The assignment: Hit the competition as “dangerous” and “weird” but remain folksy and approachable in front of an audience in the millions.

Grades are due in November. He delivered his best effort. He did not repeat the odd embellishments on his resume that have irked even some Democrats here. Not did he add any new ones. He did, however, leave the delegates in the hall delighted with Harris’ selection. The speech contained a curious – one might say weird – self-own when it came to the topic of education. And it’s one of the veep candidate’s favorite one-liners.

First, Walz had to introduce himself to the millions of Americans watching on television, but he did not do it alone. He spoke of his time in the Army National Guard; a video had played earlier in the night on the jumbotron, featuring Al Bonnifield, a veteran who served under him and who recalled that Walz’s “catchphrase was ‘we will get it done,’ and we did.” He talked football; A few members of the high school team he helped coach to a state championship had taken the stage moments earlier. He extolled the importance of being a respectful neighbor; one of his neighbors said he really was neighborly.

“Tim Walz is the kind of guy you can count on to push you out of a snowbank,” a former student who had lived next door deadpanned before delighting the crowd with his next line: “I know this because Tim Walz has pushed me out of a snowbank.”

Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar summarized the biography that Democrats want voters to learn when she described him simply as “a dad in plaid.” It was the exact kind of contrast they want to paint with the Republican alternative, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance who joined the Trump ticket last month. In a twist that shook the rafters, Walz received another assist from Oprah Winfrey, who made a surprise appearance and who brought an energy out of the crowd that was rivaled only by the Obamas.

“When a house is on fire, we don’t ask about the homeowner’s race or religion,” Winfrey said. “We don’t wonder who their partner is or how they voted – no! We just try to do the best we can to save them.” Riffing on a line from Vance, the superstar added, “And if the place happens to belong to a childless cat lady? Well, we try to get that cat out, too.”

The delegates roared at that line from Oprah, just like they roared when Walz went after Vance. “I grew up in the small town of Butte, Nebraska, population 400. I had 24 kids in my high school class,” he said shortly after taking the stage. “And none of them went to Yale.”

This is a dubious insult. Is the education Vance got at Yale Law School evidence of elitism from the Republican who was once heralded by liberals on the coasts for his story of escaping poverty? Walz has been suggesting since the moment he joined Harris on the ticket that an Ivy League education somehow makes Vance “weird.” It’s so common, the line is now part of his stump speech.

Walz did not mention the fact that many of the Democrats who joined him on the convention stage this week also went to Ivy League schools; many of them even went to Yale like Vance. At least a dozen of the Democrats who spoke at the convention Wednesday went to the country’s most elite institutions of higher education.

New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, who served as the emcee for the first half of the night, graduated from Yale Law like Vance. He wasn’t alone. Former President Bill Clinton also graduated from the esteemed law school in New Haven, Connecticut, and met his wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in those elite halls.

Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood, also went to Yale. Nor was it her first Ivy; she went to Princeton University for undergraduate school. Klobuchar is another “Yalie.” After completing her bachelor’s degree, however, the senator left the Ivy League and went to the University of Chicago for law school.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is a Harvard man whose elite undergraduate education helped him land a plum consulting job at McKinsey & Company prior to politics. Before Walz spoke, the well-educated Democrat tried to sum up Vance in one word: “Darkness – that is what they are selling.”

Amanda Gorman, the National Youth Poet Laureate, wowed the convention with a new verse just like she had at Harris and President Biden’s inauguration. She graduated from Harvard in 2020.

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis demonstrated his analytical mind when dissecting Project 2025, describing that dense white paper as a plan to “turn the entire federal government and bureaucracy into a massive machine” that “would weaponize it to control our reproductive and personal choices.” He studied at Princeton University.

Plenty of other featured speakers attended the best schools. Cecile Richards, the former abortion advocate, went to Brown University. Before earning an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, a Tony Award, and the sustained applause of Democrats for his Prince tribute, John Legend earned a degree from the University of Pennsylvania. Comedian Mindy Kaling graduated from Dartmouth College.

Even Oprah has honorary, but no less deserved, degrees from Yale and Princeton. Stevie Wonder, who sang Wednesday, also has well-earned honorary degrees from Brown and Yale.

As Walz has now made clear in numerous speeches and interviews, he did not attend an elite school like Vance. When asked about all the ivy at the Democratic convention, the Harris campaign was no longer eager to discuss elite education. A spokesman for the campaign replied, “No comment.”

There was a time, however, when Democrats found an Ivy League education praiseworthy.

Twenty years ago, at the Democratic convention in Boston, a little-known state senator from Illinois introduced himself by talking about the dreams of his grandparents. “They imagined me going to the best schools in the land, even though they weren't rich, because in a generous America you don't have to be rich to achieve your potential,” Barack Obama said during his now famous 2004 keynote address.

His education was undoubtedly elite and widely considered the result of meritocracy. He went first to Columbia University, then on to Harvard Law, and eventually the presidency.