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As a mere regular person, I don't know how political vetting works. I picture an episode of "Veep." Lots of blazers whirring by, young assistants decoding Gen Z memes, haggard operatives unearthing photos of potential candidates with appendages in light sockets. It was one time! In college!

When laboring over a presidential running mate, did Vice President Kamala Harris and her assistants discuss the stakes in my home state of Florida? We're no longer a swing state like Arizona or Georgia, but did red Florida enter their minds when choosing Tim Walz, the most affable, normcore Pillsbury mascot this side of the Big Green Egg?

Intentional or not, Walz has the potential to appeal to undecided Floridians frittering about this vast and varied state. That's because Walz is a Florida Man.

Hear me out. Technically, he is from Minnesota and before that, Nebraska. He has taken big swings at asinine politics in Florida, dogging Gov. Ron DeSantis's spate of book bans and hostile education policies. Walz even invited Florida residents to move to Minnesota, where he is governor.

But amid the cheese of that anti-Florida hotdish, there lies a tater tot of connectivity. Walz represents an archetypal knee-slapping, white, heterosexual Midwestern dad. He does not represent every dad in the diverse state of Florida, not at all.

However, he does represent some dads? A fair amount of dads? He and his vibes could reach a select spate of Floridians who came here from everywhere but Florida, who are still coming to Florida in droves from places like New York and Indiana. He could neutralize Florida's imaginary beef with Harris' state of California, a bizarre feud that intensified when our governors went on TV to debate about feces in public spaces.

Walz would tell both governors to take that potty talk to the locker room. And they would listen, because the Hardee's closes in 20 minutes, and we don't have time to horse around if we want a Frisco after practice.

Here's why I am qualified to make this assessment. I am from Ohio and moved to Tampa Bay at age 11, at which point I proceeded to matriculate among a host of friends who also had parents from Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania and yes, Minnesota. Almost everyone I knew was from somewhere else, landing here for a life of manatee mailboxes. Their families were led by Walz-adjacent fathers who worked for Delta or Nielsen or Raymond James -- solid, kind men who simply did not want to keel over shoveling snow in a cracked driveway.

In my Florida middle school universe, I found myself surrounded by other 13-year-olds who said "glass of wooter" and "grocery bayg" and "warsh cloth," not to mention the new Democratic Party battle cry of "ope." You've never seen so many teenagers apologizing to coffee tables. Their dads polished motorcycles in the garage and tinkered with computer towers in the den. They carpooled us to Wednesday night religious classes and took photos at our productions of "Bye Bye Birdie."

Consider any footage of Walz riding a state fair attraction or changing out a headlight harness. Swap him with legions of Florida men. Watch their defenses and blood pressure drop back to pre-2016 levels. Walz may be reminding women of the dads they lost to the MAGA machine, but I believe in my cabbage-rolled heart that he could also remind many Florida dads of who they are. They are good people who, free from the fog of partisan lunacy, know that subsidizing school lunch is not actually the way of Satan.

In conclusion, you can take the person out of the casserole, but you can't take the casserole out of the person. As someone who has eaten chicken paprikash prepared by church volunteers, I know this choice will have some impact on Florida. Because Tim Walz most certainly has a refrigerator in the garage exclusively for cans of pop. He knows how to fix a garbage disposal clogged with potato peels. And while he may disagree with the way things are going down here, he will always tell us to reapply sunscreen every two hours.

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Stephanie Hayes is a columnist at the Tampa Bay Times in Florida. Follow her at @stephhayes on X or @stephrhayes on Instagram.

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