In 2020, Joe Biden ran a stealth campaign in which he avoided engagement with voters and the media, enabled by pandemic restrictions and a sympathetic press. Four years later, Biden successfully used a similar strategy to avoid scrutiny during primaries that the DNC made sure would not be competitive -- until Biden decided to take on Donald Trump in a debate. In a heartbeat, Democrats pushed Biden out of the race and anointed a stealth candidate in his place.

Now Democrats have returned to the stealth model, and not just for the top of the ticket. While many of us have focused on the Silence of the Kams while the media focuses on Republican pouncing, Tim Walz has also been AWOL from media scrutiny. It's been a week since Kamala Harris picked Minnesota's governor as her running mate, and both of them have run to ground since, Howard Kurtz noted briefly yesterday:

Fox News’ @HowardKurtz: ‘Will Walz now be ordered to avoid the press like Kamala Harris? Today, for example, JD Vance is on 3 different Sunday shows, and Walz hasn't taken a single question from the press.’ pic.twitter.com/MCwz9iBuax

— TV News Now (@TVNewsNow) August 11, 2024

That led J.D. Vance to quip while retweeting this video (via Twitchy):

Walz will be ordered to do battle with the media, but will cancel the interview the day before and then tell everyone he did it anyways.

Ouch, baby, very ouch.

As Kurtz notes, Vance doesn't have any such hesitation to get in front of reporters. He did three Sunday talk shows yesterday and acquitted himself well, especially in this exchange with Dana Bash about Walz himself. Bash tried to defend Walz' military record on CNN's State of the Union, but Vance insists that Walz lied repeatedly about it, and argued that it's the lying that's the issue, not the service:

WATCH: CNN's Dana Bash, frustrated after getting her Stolen Valor questions and whataboutist followups wrapped around her head by @JDVance, desperately moves to abortion. pic.twitter.com/flFwFnHtqv

— Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) August 11, 2024

Before we move back to the main point, this question from Bash made me laugh:

BASH: One last question. Donald Trump didn't serve in the military. He received a medical draft deferment for bone spurs to avoid serving in the Vietnam War, reportedly as a favor to his father.  Do you find that shameful too?

Golly, I can remember when the American media thought draft-dodging in the Vietnam era was old news! And that was in 1992, more than thirty years ago, when Bill Clinton's manipulation of the draft and college were sold by the media as understandable, if not honorable in some weird way. 

And did Bash ever think to bring up Joe Biden's five Vietnam deferments? Including a medical deferment for "asthma," a rather surprising diagnosis given Biden's constant bragging about his athletic prowess in high school?

To get back to the point, however -- why is Bash asking Vance about Walz' exit from the National Guard? Shouldn't CNN be asking Tim Walz these questions? These are questions about Walz' record, not Vance's or Trump's, and they're being raised by the men in Walz' unit at the time who deployed to Iraq after Walz bailed out. CNN actually put his superior on the air three days prior to this Bash-Vance exchange, where Doug Julin made very clear and specific allegations of Walz' dishonesty and manipulation of the chain of command to avoid combat duty. 

So why ask Vance to comment at all after that? Why not insist that Walz come on the air to answer Julin's allegations and rebut them?

The answer is: Walz has not made himself available to the media since becoming a major-party nominee for Vice President. As in, at all. He's hiding in a bunker along with Kamala Harris and being coddled by the same Protection Racket Media. 

And this is a curiouser case than with Harris. Walz served several terms in Congress and got elected twice as governor of Minnesota. He's been around national politics for almost 20 years now, so it's not as if he's a greenhorn. For most of that time, he's been coddled by Twin Cities media always at the ready to "fact check" any criticisms of Sergeant Snitch, but no one can claim that Walz has to get some kind of special prep to face off against the media. 

Harris picked Walz in part because of his "dad" vibes and ability to project leadership. This looks like another case of a missing dad in Democrat society. The clear impression is that Walz isn't ready to answer questions about his record, both in office and in his repeated claims about his service record. And so Walz has joined the stealth campaign strategy that Biden pioneered and Harris has to adopt out of necessity. 

However, if Walz has to adopt it out of necessity too, then why choose him as a running mate in the first place?

Maybe Walz will start to show up for interviews, and Bash can get answers to her questions from the source of the problem. Until then, the rest of us can play Where's Walzo?