You don't have to read the tea leafs to know that Governor Josh Shapiro is the one the Trump campaign prays Kamala Harris picks for her running mate. It's very obvious that he is the most likely to tank her run. Which means he shouldn't be picked; however, warning sings get ignored all the time. And the results can be disastrous. The car wreck that was the 1988 presidential election was made up of one ignored warning sign after another culminating with the response to accusations Michael Dukakis was weak on defense issues by staging a photo-op where he rode around in a tank waving at people.
There were many mistakes (his response to a debate question about what if his wife was raped) and many dirty tricks (the Willie Horton ads) but, honestly, those, like the tank backlash, could have been avoided and should have been avoided.
One reason they weren't was Dukakis went into the debates with a big lead over his opponent (George HW Bush). But the main reason was the people weren't being clear eyed. There were serious issues that were at the heart of his mistakes and clarity was shoved aside.
It could happen again. Tomorrow, we'll likely find out.
That's when Vice President Kamala Harris will announce her running mate for the 2024 presidential ticket. The contenders are said to include Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, Senator Mark Kelly and Governors Tim Walz, JB Pritzker, Andy Beshear and Josh Shapiro
That's six people and supposedly they are all equally qualified and any one would be a credit to the ticket.
That's happy talk, but it's not reality.
Josh Shapiro would be a big mistake and a huge drag on the ticket.
"Genocide Joe" was a term that the DNC attempted to ignore. And all that looking the other way did was nearly hand Donald Trump an election victory.
Campaigns depend upon enthusiasm. And there was no energy for Joe. There was a feeling of "I'll vote for him to keep Donald Trump out of the White House." That worked in 2020. The hope was that it would work in 2024.
It might have turned out voters but could it have turned out enough voters?
Jordan works a full time job and is a single-parent with two kids. Jordan doesn't want Donald back in the White House but it's been a long work day, one of the kids is sick and the other needs help with homework. Enthusiasm for a candidate means Jordan's going to work hard to go vote. Lukewarm enthusiasm means Jordan is considering how to allocate limited time.
There was no real enthusiasm for a second term for Joe Biden -- not surprising when Joe himself floated, in 2020, that he might not run for a second term. It was the age, it was the sameness of the Joe and Donald rematch, it was the genocide in Gaza.
Kamala's the nominee now and she's energized the race and provided real excitement.
Five of the men mentioned could help her continue that excitement.
Shapiro can't. It's not because he's Jewish.
His supporters try to insist it is. You can read one column after another pimping that lie. JB Pritzker is Jewish and he's faced no pushback.
Shapiro has many issues. They include a harassment suit his office had to settle. After Shapiro was elected governor in 2023, he made his longtime friend and ally Mike Vereb Secretary of Legislative Affairs. In that position, Vereb harassed a female employee. Shapiro was said to be slow to act.
Some will insist that nothing was proven in court and that is true.
There was no court case.
Because they settled out of court for $295,000. That's your admission of guilt.
Guess what? The woman who was harassed had to sign a nondisclosure agreement.
Shapiro has refused to release her from that.
That's a minefield waiting to detonate. If you doubt that, remember the convictions against Donald Trump trace back to Stormy Daniels who had also signed a nondisclosure agreement.
Another minefield? His attacks on public schools and teachers.
What idiot sees Shapiro as a candidate who will help the ticket?
We haven't even gotten to the worst of it.
There's now the issue of a column he wrote in college. Mike Allen (AXIOS) mis-reports on that column:
A 31-year-old clip surfaced from Shapiro's college newspaper, in which he wrote that Palestinians were "too battle-minded" and "peace between Arabs and Israelis is virtually impossible and will never come."
- The opinion piece, "Peace not possible," ran in the Campus Times at the University of Rochester on Sept. 23, 1993.
- Shapiro told reporters Friday that the column doesn't represent his views today: "I was 20."
Before he wrote the column, he had already decided on a career in politics and already been elected student body president at the University of Rochester so let's not pretend that he was some young, naive student. He was a craven opportunist even back then (yes, Senator John Fetterman is correct about that). Equally true, that 1993 opinion resurfaced in late 2023 as he once again began attacking Palestinians and those who publicly defended them as the government of Israel began the 300-plus-days assault on Gaza.
But more to the point, Shapiro is who JD Vance wants to debate, wants to run against.
And a lot of people writing columns in support of Josh and a lot reporting on him grasp that which is why they write garbage like Mike Allen did -- garbage that ignores the explosive part of the column which, believe it or not, is not Josh Shapiro's hatred for Palestinians and his xenophobia.
No, the explosive part is when Shapiro wrote, "Despite my skepticism as a Jew and as a past volunteer in the Israeli army, I strongly hope and pray that this 'peace plan' will be successful."
Despite my skepticism as a Jew and as a past volunteer in the Israeli army?
Shapiro's team has rushed to insist that the 20-year-old mistyped and he was never in the Israeli army -- not even, they insist, as a volunteer.
He said what he said.
And if you're not getting how that's a deal breaker, think back to JD Vance getting all pissy when called on his rude remarks about people without children. He served! He raged that he served his country in the military!!!!
Now, as Elaine's pointed out, he's not really a combat veteran despite serving in war zones because he wasn't really serving as a combat soldier:
It's not necessary that Kamala pick a running mate who served in the military. (Walz was in the National Guard and Kelly was in the Navy.) It is necessary that she pick someone who won't provide easy ammo for the Trump campaign.
JD Vance will make the argument that while he was serving in the US military, Josh Shapiro was serving in the Israeli military. And the weak comeback of: no, no, he didn't, he mispoke won't mean a damn thing. Because Josh did go to Israel to serve. Military or not, he went to Israel to serve. (And let's note that we don't know what he did in Israel -- no one does. With his own hands, he wrote that he served in the Israeli military. From the mouths of his team, we hear that's not the case.)
He went to Israel. This wasn't Peace Corps work, grasp that. This wasn't helping a poverty stricken nation, grasp that.
He was an American citizen and he elected to volunteer to help a government -- a foreign government.
If you missed it, the US government is now wanting US flags to be made in the US. It's a new fever of patriotism and the man who could serve the government of Israel but not his own country looks suspect.
Is he wanting to be vice president to serve the United States or to serve Israel?
When he felt the need to volunteer, it wasn't for America. When he felt the need to get married, America wasn't good enough for him then either. He and his American bride got married in Israel.
Donald Trump is currently still questioning whether or not Kamala is Black. Previously, he questioned whether or not Barack Obama was born in this country.
It's not a stretch of the imagination to picture Donald at one of his rallies yelling something like, "For all I know, he's a citizen of Israel -- an Israeli-American."
Josh's own actions and remarks have made himself the other. He's far too tied to another nation to be seen by most Americans as someone who will put the United States first.
And we don't have time to waste, over the next two and a half months, putting aside the party's message, setting aside the issues, to turn into a 24-7 rapid response team for a lousy vice presidential pick. Anyone with a brain should be able to grasp that Shapiro is.
October 2, 1991, Bill Boyarsky (LOS ANGELES TIMES) wrote, "Since 1988, when Dukakis' anticipated victory turned to defeat, political junkies have been turned off to presidential politics." He wrote it in a profile on Vicky Rideout. Now she went on to have a career as a consultant and do many other things. None of which changes the fact that Vicky's work on Dukakis campaign really helped kill his campaign. or that she shouldn't have been surprised by the twists and turns that turned a sure thing win into one of the biggest failures in presidential campaign history. She was, after all, the issues director. Yet as each issue surfaced, she had no response prepared and no way to change the narrative. Granted, she was slutting around. No question there, she broke up a marriage using time she should have instead been devoting to the campaign. She should have seen the problems emerging for the campaign but she refused to recognize them. Being willfully blind is not how you run a campaign.