Within hours of officially becoming Kamala Harris’ vice presidential nominee, Tim Walz gave a speech attempting to contrast himself against GOP nominee Senator J.D. Vance. Among the statements Walz made was one that struck a chord with me.

He admitted that in all his years of teaching, not a single student of his attended Yale University — is that something he should be proud of?

This is not the first time he attacked Senator Vance for attending an Ivy League.

“Like all regular people I grew up with in the heartland, J.D. studied at Yale … Come on. That’s not what middle America is!”

According to Walz, going from poverty to success is not middle America enough.

As the Republican Minority Whip of the Minnesota House of Representatives, I wish I could tell you this is the first time Walz has leveraged power through personal insults. But it isn’t.

Governor Walz is a former high school teacher from a part of Minnesota that is more rural than not. He likely had students who, like Vance, had very little means, were bright and made their way to a prestigious institution of higher learning through hard work and sacrifice.

How does a high school teacher who ran for Governor saying that education is the “great equalizer” that should be afforded to all Minnesotans, now flip to ridiculing someone for their educational achievements? How could a former teacher belittle an Ivy League education for someone who grew up in poverty? Why wouldn’t he instead celebrate that as part of the American Dream?

Answer: He’s a bully willing to denigrate anything for political points and will quickly betray the things he once held dear to advance his political career.

Can you imagine Tim Walz, the teacher, telling a student at Mankato West High that a Yale education wasn’t Middle America enough? No, when it was teacher Tim, there would’ve been whooping and hollering in the hallways of Mankato West High for the students headed to Yale.

There would’ve been high fives and pictures taken: a truly righteous celebration of achievement.

Instead, Walz decided to cheapen Vance’s journey for political gain. He declared that success is not a virtue of “Middle America,” which got me thinking about the legislators I serve with on Walz’s side of the aisle, who I know attended Ivy League schools.

I did a little research, and there are currently eight Democratic legislators in the Minnesota House of Representatives who attended an Ivy League school, most notably the Democratic Speaker of the House, who received her Master’s degree from Harvard.

I wonder if that is considered virtuous from Walz’s Middle American point of view. Are the other legislators, along with the Speaker, poor representations of Middle American values? Is he willing to denigrate them too? Or is his ire and vitriol solely reserved for Vance?

Teacher Tim Walz would be embarrassed by his cheap statement about Vance’s education. I think about students that Walz taught and wonder if one of them went to college somewhere like an Ivy League school, and somewhere inside the cover of their old yearbook, there’s a note from teacher Tim congratulating them for their great achievement and telling them how proud he was of them for making the best of their education and future.

What Walz isn’t saying about education is this: During his administration, standardized test scores for K-12 students dropped incredibly in reading and math despite him and the Democratic majority spending millions.

Perhaps he should mention to America that the number of students graduating in four years has decreased to 83%, and 30% are “chronically absent.”

Instead of diminishing Senator Vance’s prestigious education, one might think Walz should focus on his own shaky record in education policy in Minnesota.

Governor Walz’s politically motivated cheap shot against Vance’s education is a deplorable and obvious attempt to distract from his own policy failures. It reveals that he is a political animal and is willing to betray everything he once stood for in Minnesota to score points with the Democrat party’s base.

Jim Nash is a Republican representing Minnesota’s 48A district and is the House minority whip. 

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller.