Just like that I’m a Tim Walz groupie. But why, I wonder. (“What Paul says about Peter tells us more about Paul than about Peter,” said Spinoza.)

All I know about – I feel like calling him Tim – is what I’ve been shown in two days, a show contrived to garner my regard. Modern politics is a canny act, no candid confession. No naif, I accept that my buttons are being pushed.

But they’re the right buttons being pushed in the right way. Tim feels good for what ails us, just what the doctor ordered, a cleansing tonic for our corroded souls. As a pubescent slavers for any nubile body, I crave what Tim offers – and salute President-to-be Harris on her savvy selection, which bodes well for her leadership.

Tim’s a surprise, he’s so unslick, a throwback to an earlier notion of our nation. The heartland is predictably less crafty than our coasts, insulated from the influence of foreigners. While true in olden days, when folks came to this continent by boats, it remains true in a world shrunk by highways, engines, and the invisible filaments of electronics. Why this should be I’m not sure – I’m not even sure it’s true – but it feels true. “Down home” means more where the soil is used to grow.

Tim strikes me as less cynical, sly, manipulative than the pols who’ve been elbowing into recent headlines. I don’t listen to speeches or statements anymore, all more or less lies. Trump’s mendacious example, while extreme, is not uncommon. Why waste a moment on these blackguards’ bather?

I believe Tim means what he says – that’s a heady brew in our bullshit moment. Accepting his intention, I pay attention. His manner feels straightforward, down-to-earth, not fraudulently sly. He’s no manipulative smoothie like the pair he’s running against, quick to explain why what they said wasn’t what they said. A teacher by profession, Tim’s job is not to convince a jury with a brief burst of words but by long consistency to earn his students’ trust.

His matter, too, persuades me he’s in this grotesque game for the right reasons: to mollify the lives of others, not magnify his own. He signed up to serve, not serve himself, syphoning his fill from the public trough. Nutritious meals for schoolkids, for example, feels like an extravagance our rich nation might afford, more productive than cutting billionaires’ taxes so they can buy bigger boats.

For nearly a decade now, I’ve been watching America aghast. What was wrong with us, I kept asking. Were we so sunk in selfishness and grievance we’d lost sight of purpose?  Did truth, civility, kindness, generosity, justice no longer count? Was democracy impossible in a world grown too conniving and complex? Maybe the miraculous era of the responsible Self, which commenced with the Renaissance, had run its course. Maybe we were slip-sliding backward into tyranny. Were the repugnant Trumps and their acolytes our new shining lights?

I grieved – you did too, I’m sure – nonplussed, confused, disheartened. The Sermon on the Mount was a joke. Our species wasn’t salvageable. Good riddance.

The sudden startling shift in American politics in the last few weeks buoys me with hope. Bless good Joe Biden for – finally! – getting out of the way of change. Bless Kamala for being so much more competent, convivial, and convincing than we’d been led to believe. Now bless Tim for being – what? – a homespun, unfancy, untricky, unslick, un-coastal, un-Ivy League good guy. This Yalie has had enough of Yalies for the nonce. Let’s hear it for the heartland. It’s not too late to be good.