Because it’s Zach Beauchamp and he essentially hates the left.

I know everyone is giving you tidy, case-solving “it’s-always-like-this” responses, but indeed you are on to something.

Let the anti-anti corporate work begin (Walz and Harris being the [somewhat] anti-corporate).

Well, he didn’t just crawl out of a hole, he has a record. The article is making the claim that he has the potential to bring together different elements of the democratic party, which ultimately is the party of everyone else that isn’t voting Trump. This is a big tent with a lot of perspectives, and while democrats are largely united against Trump, that doesn’t inherently mean they’re just as united behind the candidate (as we just saw), and those kind of things are ripe for Republicans to pick at and promote infighting.

If you think that’s baffling, take a look at Nate Silver’s column:

https://www.natesilver.net/p/tim-walz-is-a-minnesota-nice-choice

I’m not sure if Nate is talking about the same Walz and Shapiro as the rest of us.

I think that’s a pretty simplistic take considering we just swapped our candidate less than 6 months before the election. I agree with the article’s take that Walz has potential to unify the differing democratic coalitions, and don’t see any evidence of your claim.

Walz’s elevation earns the left a big victory. Yet because Walz himself isn’t of the left, the pick seems intended to serve a unifying purpose: a candidate who appeals to all different stripes of Democrats for different reasons. The fact that Democrats across the political spectrum seem thrilled by the pick — with effusive support coming from people ranging from Sen. Joe Manchin (WV) to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY) — seems to validate the theory.

It’s important to be clear: The VP selection matters way less for elections than people think. It’s much more important to select a potential president than an optimal running mate.

But you can see why Harris sees picking Walz as smart politics. It allows her to simultaneously hand the left a win without necessarily tacking left — potentially keeping her coalition united even as she works to win over the general election’s decisive centrists.

I think its important to recognize the value this VP pick can bring, and I’ve not known vox to try to suggest something like that without reason.

Edit: I’m also going to add that your reply is a disingenuous attempt to falsely turn this into a binary unified or not unified condition, not that the article is making such a claim. I entirely reject your statement.