Tim Walz Came To Detroit In The Rain. It Was Boring, And That Is Great.

And Wonkette was there.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz rallied supporters in Detroit, Michigan, late into the night on the eve of the 2024 election, Monday, Nov. 4. Walz, the running mate of Vice President Kamala Harris, was joined on stage by his wife, Gwen Walz, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Lt. Gov. Garlan Gilchrist III, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, and Rep. Elissa Slotkin, who is hoping to succeed retiring Sen. Debbie Stabenow. Also performing were singers John Bon Jovi, Michael Stipe of REM, Tanya and Michael Trotter of The War and Treaty.

But that news lede doesn't necessarily convey the scene.

“This is an outdoor site,” the campaign's confirmation email advised. “There are steps, uneven surfaces, and gravel present...Conditions may be wet. Please prepare accordingly."

Pre-set was scheduled for noon, and access wasn't until 5 p.m. Several outlets had already reported the candidate(s) wouldn't take the stage until 10:30 p.m. That meant there was a good chance we would all be standing around in the rain for a couple of hours.

The prospect of leaving a bunch of expensive camera and computer gear outside in downtown Detroit all day in the rain seemed like a very stupid idea for a host of rather obvious reasons. I have personally strolled into highly secure areas like an idiot without being stopped on a few occasions over the course of the campaign. And I didn't feel like testing my Nikon's “weather sealing.”

“All large gear, including cameras and tripods must be pre-set,” that advisory went continued. “Editorials will only need to pre-set if you will have a backpack.”

Eventually, the campaign further clarified to me that I could bring my gear at access time, but they cautioned, “it may take longer for you to get through security.”

This, it turns out, meant a 20-minute inspection of every pouch and container in my meticulously organized gear bags. The TSA agent searching my gear sighed as he picked through my first-aid kits, and multiple tech and tool pouches. When the agent got to my rolling tobacco, the USSS agent carrying an assault-style rifle glared at me as I gnawed voraciously on the apple I had forgotten to eat prior to inspection.

“Rolling tobacco,” I said, spitting out an apple seed. “Two hundred bucks, and I got cigarettes for six months.”

The queue of other journalists shared in the SS agent’s irritated glare as I continued to casually eat my apple and rocked back and forth on my heels. I had done this song and dance enough times to know what I could and couldn’t bring in.

“Trash can,” I asked with an obnoxious smile, holding up the unsightly mangled apple core.

Detroit's Hart Plaza had been divided into a series of arching mazes that separated the press, attendees, ADA seating, and the secure backstage area. The outermost arch facing the river (and Canada to the south) had food trucks and portable toilets. Two press risers, one to the side (the “cut”) and one facing the podium (the “head-on”), were once again somewhat obscured by thick sheets of ballistic glass.

For some incredibly stupid reason, the head-on riser sat facing the city skyline, right on the slope in front of the Horace E. Dodge and Son Memorial Fountain. This meant that the riser was the only decent shot facing the front of the stage because the crowd would be standing on a higher plane than the photographers on the ground behind them. The riser, we were told, also had a weight limit so professional photographers would have to rotate out with the amateurs screwing with cellphones for shitty photos, videos and social media selfies.

The off-and-on showers posed another challenge. The majority of reporting equipment is electronic and thus not great bedfellows with water that falls from the sky. Several reporters were attempting to file and edit stories on the wet filing tables. One seemed unaware about the hazards of plugging a laptop into a wet power strip.

But none of this seemed to bother the crowd of attendees who were slowly filling in through the maze of metal barricades despite the weather. It was a Monday, in the rain, in downtown Detroit late in the evening, and there were still hundreds of people coming out for a political speech.

Which is, as Rep. Elissa Slotkin joked during her rain-speckled speech, not exactly the most entertaining thing during bad weather.

The crowd swayed, grooved and danced to Motown classics and contemporary artists. The campaign was once again using DJ Romeo to create an atmosphere that was more in line with a dance party than a series of stuffy political speeches. Campaign staffers with thumbs and eyeballs glued to their cellphones were grinning as they mouthed the lyrics to Beyoncé's “Freedom,” the Harris campaign's theme song. When a technical glitch with the Detroit Youth Choir kept the microphones from picking up some singers, the director came out and said, “Let’s do it again,” eliciting a raucous cheer from the crowd. The crowd erupted when Bon Jovi came out with the War and Treaty to sing a few songs, and then REM’s Michael Stipe came out for a song that even surprised me.

The rally was one of many that Harris, Walz, and their surrogates were holding in various battleground states simultaneously. Detroit was Walz’s final stop of the evening. The campaign of former president and 2024 Republican nominee Donald Trump was similarly holding multiple events late into the night across multiple states (though Trump staffers had spent a considerable part of the day pushing back against footage showing the almost 80-year-old Trump looking exhausted and speaking with a hoarse voice).

Walz was introduced by his wife, Gwen. Walz kept it short and sweet. He didn’t show up over an hour late, like Trump did in Grand Rapids, and spend over an hour rambling and yelling. Walz implored people to get out and vote, made a few football analogies, and talked about the stakes in the election.

“You could probably tell from these rallies all across the country tonight, this team is running like everything's on the line,” Walz said. “Because everything's on the line…With one or two votes per precinct in the state of Michigan, we can win the whole damn thing.”

“That was worth the three-hour drive,” two people said I walked toward my truck. They were from Mount Pleasant, Michigan, they explained. They got stuck in a little traffic on the way, and were glad that they were able to see Walz (et al.).

When Rebecca asked me how the rally was, I told her it was, “kind of boring.”

Nobody was making bombastic declarations, hurling obscenities, or blatantly insulting entire groups of voters as un-American or sub-human. There weren't white supremacist or Nazi-era tropes. Nobody was attacking what's left of the working press corps as the “enemy of the people,” calling for mass deportations or executions. The only hint of violence came from the colleagues and security officials I annoyed on my way in to the rally.

It was a pretty bog-standard political rally that just happened to stretch late into the night on a rainy Monday. And then everybody went home.

But that's what's on the ballot.

It is a choice between perpetual chaos, vitriol and violence, and the type of “normal” where one has an expectation for an honest day's pay after an honest day's work. It is the difference between endlessly doom-scrolling social media platforms run by obscenely wealthy and self-interested 21st Century drug dealers, and a decent night's sleep. It is a choice between a regulatory agency by a nut with literal brain worms, and a nerd eager to talk about the economic differences of municipal water systems in major cities utilizing various flow control and filtration methods. It is a choice between upholding the First Amendment, and destroying the Constitution.

“You are sitting here in the rain the night before the election, on a Monday night, because you love your country and you want it to be better. We love our country, so wear your patriotism on your sleeve. Carry the flag, wear it proudly, and don't give an inch to the pretenders on the other side who wrap themselves in the damn flag and then spit on the values that it represents.” -Rep. Elissa Slotkin