So the die was cast. Tim Walz, Governor of Minnesota, was elected Vice President and named the vice presidential running mate of Democratic candidate Kamala Harris. Many of my colleagues and political pundits had already sided with Josh Shapiro, Governor of Pennsylvania, but I knew that would never happen. The Democratic Party is as anti-Semitic as it is racist, and it will be a long time before we see a Jew on the presidential ticket again. Think of 2000 with Vice President Al Gore and Senator Joe Lieberman– that was a disaster, and it was so long ago.
The Democratic Party has been overtaken by the pro-Palestinian wing: the Rashida Tlaibs and Ilhan Omars are present throughout the party, especially in the Rust Belt and the Northeast.
As my colleague Ward Clark reported:
But progressive groups are still Harris warns about Shapiro.
One Letter signed by nearly 50 progressive leaders pointed to Shapiro’s “shortcomings as a national candidate” and urged the vice president to consider Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear (D) and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz (D) instead.
“Given the tight timeline we face to defeat the Trump-Vance-MAGA threat, we simply cannot afford to back down,” the letter said.
A letter from another progressive group called VP Unity said Harris’ consideration of Shapiro had “raised alarm bells” among youthful voters, Muslims, Arab Americans and activists.
Look at these categories: “…young voters, Muslims, Arab Americans, and activists.”
From this, we can conclude with a fair degree of certainty that the “young voters” and “activists” are those who have either staged or sympathize with “peaceful protests” for the destruction of Israel on college campuses across the country. And if we were to draw one of Kamala Harris’s popular Venn diagrams of “Muslims” and “Arab Americans,” there would probably be almost complete overlap.
These youthful voters, activists and ethnic groups may not be as numerous as they seem, but they are extremely vocal. Look at the damage being done to college campuses across the country. Look at the destruction and attacks on Jewish life in Los Angeles. Had Shapiro been selected as Kamala Harris’s vice presidential running mate, they would have raised hell at the Democratic National Convention, on social media and in a city near you.
So trying not to elect Shapiro had a lot to do with getting her to fall in line and get peaceful. We’ll see how well that works. We live in a sea of insanity, so anything can happen.
As governor, Shapiro is far more popular than Walz, and he governs a “purple state” in which he Re-election without problems.
Shapiro was 14 points ahead of Joe Biden in his state. Was he running against an election-denying nutcase? Yes, but so was Mark Kelly in Arizona, and Kelly was only five points ahead of Biden. Shapiro’s lead suggests very broad appeal.
Once in office, he was able to boost his approval rating even further. A recent poll showed an approval rating of +29. That is an incredible level of approval for a state with a Democratic majority.
But it makes sense when you look at how Shapiro operates and communicates. Because he doesn’t have a solid Democratic majority, he hasn’t been able to sign legislation as far-reaching as his fellow Democratic governors Gretchen Whitmer and Tim Walz. But he has made progress on issues that are both substantively essential and boost his appeal.
But here’s the problem: Harris is at the top of the list of candidates, an unpopular vice president and now a manufactured presidential candidate who needs to be hyped up and supported. Shapiro, on the other hand, has great personal appeal, comes across as real and can actually string words together precisely and spontaneously. It wouldn’t have taken long for Shapiro to overshadow her – and a vice presidential candidate can never overshadow the front-runner.
Anyone who calls Walz a leftist has allowed themselves to be negatively polarized by the campus protesters. The guy is a moderate midfielder politically and a tough guy in terms of charisma/aesthetics – much more so than the sophisticated coastal lawyer Shapiro. pic.twitter.com/XUlTqtvIdt
— Dan Riffle (@DanRiffle) 6 August 2024
There was also the risk that Shapiro would have run for president before the end of the 2028 term and run a shadow campaign behind Harris’ back. The ambitious. Whoever deep pride in his Jewish ancestry and heritage, who can dismiss his previous positions on Israel and the Jewish people as “evolved,” shows how much he wanted to be on the ballot. Joe Lieberman has been uncompromising in his support for Israel throughout his life and has never compromised his values, and that is why he was pushed out of the Democratic Party. Shapiro, on the other hand, is elastic. That flexibility may also have been his undoing. The malleable get little respect and are expendable when the party stops exploiting them. The most recent example is President Joe Biden.
Walz, on the other hand, is Scranton Joe 2.0. Although his policies and their results were extremely radical, he is a 2008 Al Franken, playing up the credibility of the affable father and grandfather. This is where the Trump campaign and Republicans better get shrewd.
Harris’s case for choosing Tim Walz is that his demeanor and appearance convince independents that he is a moderate, normal guy, while his track record convinces voters that he is an uncompromising far-left zealot. The national press can hide the latter from the former.
– Dan McLaughlin (@baseballcrank) 6 August 2024
You can’t expect fighting this election result to be a walk in the park. Remember, Walz was the one who painted Trump and JD Vance as “weird.” He may seem harmless, but he’s incredibly insidious. The Harris-Walz team has an established media and DNC apparatus that will work overtime to cover up and cover this up, and the love fest has already begun.
Progressives in Minnesota have not always been enthusiastic about Tim Walz.
But over the years, Walz has shifted some of his more moderate views to the left – and also impressed voters with his willingness to “engage in disagreement.”
Why they see him as @KamalaHarris‘ VP selection ⤵️ https://t.co/L8Jvb4s63l
— Kyle Stokes (@kystokes) 6 August 2024
This must be exposed with surgical and strategic precision, not through crude memes and clumsy portrayals that turn Walz into a beleaguered hero rather than a unsafe ideologue and partner in the destruction of America.
