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    Tim Walz’s Jam: Dylan, Prince, the Replacements and Hüsker Dü

    Kamala Harris’s running mate is a rock fan with an affinity for Minnesota artists including Bob Dylan, Prince, the Replacements and Hüsker Dü.When Beto O’Rourke and Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota served in Congress together in the 2010s, they would go on early morning jogs and talk about their shared love of music from Minnesota, from icons like Bob Dylan and Prince to the indie rock ferment the Twin Cities produced in the 1980s, including the Replacements and Hüsker Dü.“Music would come up a lot,” Mr. O’Rourke recalled of those runs when they were both serving on the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. (He also said that Mr. Walz, a native Nebraskan, seemed impervious to Washington winters, wearing T-shirts and shorts.)Mr. Walz’s affinity for rock comes up often enough, vouched for by enough sources, to appear deep-seated. By all appearances, the governor, whom Vice President Kamala Harris selected on Tuesday as her running mate, truly loves his dad rock.Three years ago Mr. Walz wished Bob Dylan — born in Duluth, raised in Hibbing — a happy 80th birthday on social media, identifying “Forever Young” as a favorite Dylan tune (Walz posted the slow version, not the up-tempo one). Last year Mr. Walz used purple ink to sign a law honoring the Minneapolis native Prince, the artist behind the 1984 album and movie “Purple Rain,” by renaming a stretch of Highway 5 the “Prince Rogers Nelson Memorial Highway.”Mr. Walz periodically texts about upcoming rock concerts in the Twin Cities or Mr. O’Rourke’s hometown, El Paso. “I love that he has got one of the most intense jobs in the world, all these things on his plate, but he finds time to reach out, to listen to music, to go to concerts,” Mr. O’Rourke, a onetime presidential hopeful, said in an interview.Mr. Walz, 60, is also a fan of Bruce Springsteen. Patrick Murphy, a former Democratic congressman from Pennsylvania who at one point was Mr. Walz’s roommate in Washington, recalled how Mr. Walz urged him to delve deeper into the Springsteen catalog.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    J.D. Vance Becomes Trump’s New Apprentice

    In his prime-time debut, the senator and “Hillbilly Elegy” author showed what he has to offer his running mate.Speaking Wednesday at the Republican National Convention, Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio became the latest, and potentially most consequential, of Donald J. Trump’s apprentices to accept the position in prime time.For years as the host of “The Apprentice,” Mr. Trump picked out protégés from boardrooms full of young supplicants. There was a delicate art to getting the nod. Offend him and you might be dismissed; appear too thirsty and you could get the boot as well. The key was to be yourself but also be him, to be a mirror but a flattering one, to be an echo auto-tuned to please the boss’s ear.Mr. Vance spent much of his two years in the Senate auditioning for the promotion to vice-presidential nominee, cultivating a relationship, apologizing for his Never-Trumper apostasy and recently blaming Biden campaign rhetoric for leading “directly” to the assassination attempt against Mr. Trump.Accepting the nomination on Wednesday night, he cast himself as a loyal fighter, an ideological heir and a grateful son of the working class with roots in Appalachia and the Rust Belt.With Merle Haggard’s “America First” as his walk-on music, he began his speech praising Mr. Trump: “He didn’t need politics,” Mr. Vance said, “but the country needed him.” Mr. Trump looked on smiling in split-screen, as if watching a winner at a season finale.When it came to introducing himself, Mr. Vance had a head start and a challenge. He was telling a story he had already told, in the memoir “Hillbilly Elegy,” and so had Ron Howard, in the 2020 film adaptation.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More