Josh Shapiro is a popular governor in a swing state with eighteen electoral college votes. But he is Jewish.
CNN is reporting Kamala Harris has reportedly named Tim Walz of Minnesota as her running mate. Walz not only shut kids out of school for a year, but refused law enforcement resources to quell rioting in 2020. He is a progressive’s progressive. He is also not Jewish.
Harris has given the antisemites of the Democratic Party a heckler’s veto in the choice of her running mate and rejected the strategic play with eighteen electoral college votes for a white guy from a safe Democrat state who will not alienate the people who hate Jews.
Maybe CNN is wrong. Shapiro makes way more sense. But avoiding alienating progressive antisemites seems to be Harris’s strategy.
It will be poetic justice if the Democrats lose because they just wouldn't, couldn't, didn't deal with the corrosive stew of anti-Semitism simmering within their ranks. And also: Walz has been a terrible governor; I live in MN. The mayor of Minneapolis begged Walz to call out the National Guard and he waited 18 hours before doing so, while Minneapolis burned, because he sympathized with the rioters. And also: the reason Walz won after the disaster of the 2020 riots is that the MN Republicans nominated a conspiracy theorist to oppose him. MN Democrats are crazy. MN Republicans are correspondingly crazy.
As has been said for doctors, the first rule in picking a VP nominee is to do no harm. Vetting may have uncovered some "childless cat-lady" type comment by Shapiro that could have taken Harris off message. The success of the pick will be determined by whether anyone is still talking about it two weeks from now.