Jim Geraghty of National Review Online ponders the latest developments in presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris’ veepstakes.
The fact that Harris’s veep tour starts in Philadelphia on Tuesday tells us one of two things.
Scenario one: Harris is going to pick Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro.
Scenario two: Harris is going to pick someone else, and Shapiro will have to attend that rally and clap and smile like an Oscar nominee everyone has been raving about, only to have the Academy select someone else from an indie film that nobody saw. Shapiro is such a glaringly obvious, slam-dunk choice that if Harris doesn’t pick him, people will wonder if something disqualifying came up during the vetting. …
… If Michigan looks good and Shapiro can secure Pennsylvania, two-thirds of the Blue Wall looks solid.
Vox is suddenly skeptical that picking Shapiro would help Harris win Pennsylvania.
The guy won four state legislative races in the swing suburban county of Montgomery County, then won a race for county commissioner, then won a statewide race for state attorney general, and then in 2020 he won more votes than Joe Biden did at the top of the ticket. You think maybe this guy knows a thing or two about how to win a race in Pennsylvania?
The hard-left progressives are seething about the possibility of Shapiro’s being a heartbeat away from the presidency.
Emily Tankin of Slate fumes that Shapiro is “hostile to a pillar of the First Amendment” and “could undercut the core of Harris’ very compelling argument, which is that her campaign is standing up for American freedoms” — because of his criticism of antisemitic anti-Israel protests on college campuses and his call for university presidents to restore order and ensure that Jewish students don’t feel threatened by protesters.
Writing in the New Republic, David Klion calls Shapiro “egregiously bad on Palestine” and complains, “As governor, Shapiro’s particular animus against pro-Palestine activism has only grown more apparent and troubling. Last December, he played an active role in the GOP-orchestrated sacking of University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill.”
