One of the big questions in US politics over the past few months has been why Kamala Harris has so much difficulty talking about the policies she herself has adopted and decided to run on. Is it part of some ingenious secret strategy, an example of her playing checkers while we observers play chess? Or does it reflect the weakness of a candidate who much of her own party was nervous about elevating to the top of the ticket?

We may have gotten our answer in last night’s vice presidential debate. Harris’s running mate, Minnesota governor Tim Walz, put in a performance that was far from the smooth and polished one you’d expect from a decades-long political operator. He mixed up Iran and Israel several times, for example, and at one point said he had “become friends with school shooters.” Nevertheless, he capably and effectively both made the case for Harris’s agenda and explained how what Donald Trump and J. D. Vance planned to do would be disastrous for voters’ lives.

Walz is where he is right now in large part thanks to his communication skills, and there’s a lot that not just wonky liberal technocrats but leftists can learn from his rhetorical style. Throughout the night, Walz was able to put complicated, esoteric concepts and policy details into everyday terms that just about anyone can understand, and frame them as matters of fairness and basic common decency.