DAVID WOIWOD: Could Tim Walz be the running mate Donald Trump wished he had in JD Vance?

We’ve all experienced buyer’s remorse.

A nagging sense of regret as you walk out of a store a little lighter in the wallet. Or that feeling of dread when you click confirm purchase online.

I’ve certainly had it. An olive-green suit I used to rock around Victoria’s State Parliament in 2012 immediately springs to mind.

Admittedly, it’s low-level regret and nothing like the feeling of dissatisfaction Donald Trump appears to be experiencing over his running mate pick, JD Vance.

And that’s even before today’s unveiling of Tim Walz as the Democrats’ counterpoint to the Republican ticket.

Vance was carefully chosen as the common-touch, Midwestern everyman that a 34-time-convicted, twice-impeached, sexual-assaulting billionaire could really use on his ticket right now.

An acclaimed author who quite literally wrote the book on growing up poor in America’s rust belt.

Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy set a spotlight on the country’s forgotten battlers and set the 40-year-old on a career trajectory that has put him a hair’s-breadth from the Vice Presidency.

And a health complication away from the Oval Office.

Sure, he’s done Donald dirty in the past. Comparing him to “America’s Hitler” is a barb he’ll never outrun. But in this greasy game called politics, it’s nothing a little Republican spin can’t clean up.

But now Vance is in the race you can nearly smell the Republican regret after his selection failed to set the ticket on fire.

If anything, he’s dampening the kindling and draining the lighter.

It started with the explosive “childless cat lady” comment — a hardline critique of childless women that’s only making the conservative pitch to crucial suburban female voters a tougher task.

Then there’s the victimised, anti-woke moaning about a “therapeutic society” that’s turning his simple pleasures like Diet Mountain Dew “racist”.

If that confuses you, wait for the next one.

Vance has been the subject of viral rumours, including the suggestion he seduced and serviced a sofa in his youth.

It’s a claim since disproven by The Associated Press, but the ‘Streisand Effect’ of the attention-grabbing headline only served as a bigger distraction: “No, JD Vance did not have sex with a couch”.

Fair to say it’s been a short and inglorious road for Vance from the loved-up convention centre in Milwaukee last month when the hardest-core of MAGA Republicans warmly embraced him and his ever-changing political spots.

It has also forced Donald Trump into a defensive posture with the campaign regularly questioned over Vance’s performance.

The former president insists the VP choice “doesn’t have any impact” on voters. Adding that it’s only the headline acts that’ll sway the electorate.

It’s not exactly the ringing endorsement a deputy would be hoping for this late in the game.

In 2008, John McCain’s presidential campaign was weighed down by his choice of running mate; Sarah Palin.

Vance doesn’t cast the MAGA net any wider for Republicans. And that’s ringing alarm bells for Republicans.

The former prisoner of war later expressed his own buyer’s remorse. It took years for him to conclude in his book “that he wished he had instead selected former Sen. Joseph Lieberman”.

Imagine if he did. There may be no Barack Obama. But worse, there may be no Tina Fey.

It makes Kamala Harris’ selection of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate that much more fascinating.

The former teacher and football coach fills out the Democratic ticket in a way JD Vance was supposed to, but just hasn’t done, for the MAGA movement.

There are similarities between the two men.

They both have small town, folksy log cabin stories and rural mid-western appeal that their parties are banking heavily on.

But unlike Vance, Walz can sell the electorate on a decades-long record of legislative achievement and cross-party negotiation.

Walz is a proven bridge-builder. He reaches across the aisle. A rare commodity in these Divided States of America.

It also doesn’t hurt with disaffected Republicans and Independents that he’s a proud gun owner. An avid hunter and fisherman — not usually Democratic talking points.

In contrast, Vance’s biggest strength is his willingness to be Trump’s brawling political junkyard dog. Unmuzzled, he’s unafraid of losing skin in a fight.

But Vance doesn’t cast the MAGA net any wider for Republicans. He has doubled down within a small corner of right-wing extremism and so far doesn’t seem to be winning over new voters.

And that’s ringing alarm bells for Republicans.

Walz has the opportunity now to broaden Harris’ base.

Democrats are banking on him dragging in uncommitted older suburbanites (read: white voters) from across battleground states.

They hope those voters, looking for a non-Trump option, will see themselves in the 60-year-old Minnesotan.

But Walz is an unknown quantity on the national stage. A small state governor who’s caused few political ripples.

And that means the race is on to define ‘who is’ Tim Walz.

Is he a progressive policy wonk, with a knack for bringing people from across the spectrum together?

Or is he an unhinged lunatic leftie with a dangerously liberal outlook?

The truth may be obvious.

But whoever wins that race, will determine whether Kamala Harris will experience her own feelings of buyer’s remorse on November 6.