Josh Shapiro Offers Harris a Platform to Show Independence

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro wouldn’t be the first Jewish American on a presidential ticket. That distinction would belong to Connecticut’s Joe Lieberman, who saddled up with Democratic presidential nominee Al Gore in 2000.

And then there’s Barry Goldwater, the grandson of “Big” Mike Goldwasser, a Jewish immigrant from Poland. Raised in his mother’s Christian faith, the Arizona senator was either too Jewish or not Jewish enough for some voters.

The joke Goldwater used to tell was that he once was set to play 18 holes of golf at an exclusive country club on the East Coast. Informed that Jews were not welcome, he said “Well, my father was Jewish but my mother was Episcopalian, so can I play nine?”

But Shapiro is no back nine kind of Jew. He quotes the scriptures in his speeches, keeps kosher, and launched his 2022 gubernatorial campaign with an ad emphasizing how he and his family observe the Jewish sabbath together every Friday night. Like Lieberman, he has leaned into his faith and culture.

With more than 400,000 Jewish residents, Pennsylvania is a pretty good place to make that case. Nearly 8 percent of all Jewish Americans live in the Keystone State. Back in 1970, when Pennsylvania elected its first Jewish governor, it was a time when many Jewish Americans felt obliged to change family names to avoid antisemitism. Milton Shapp had also been born Shapiro, but changed his handle to fit in with the times. Now, you can get elected statewide in a landslide, keep your “iro” and make your own challah. 

Shapiro won admiration from friends of Israel, both Jews and gentiles, when he took a hard line against antisemitism in the pro-Palestinian protests that took place at the University of Pennsylvania and other elite schools, likening the hateful messages to those of the Ku Klux Klan. But that made him lots of enemies on the anti-Israel left.

Following his emergence as the frontrunner to be the running mate of presumptive Democratic nominee Kamala Harris has been a concerted effort to keep him off the ticket, including a “surfacing” of an op-ed he wrote as a college student at the University of Rochester in New York that declared peace between Israel and the Palestinians was not possible because Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was “an egotistical, power-hungry tyrant who is in danger of being assassinated by his fellow belligerent Arabs because he does not represent the majority opinion.”

The talk among Democrats in Washington is that Shapiro looks good for swing voters—moderate, battleground state, good campaigner—but will fire up the anti-war left and make it harder for Harris to carry Michigan, where members of its large Arab-American population has made it clear they will punish Democrats for the Biden administration’s support for Israel. And radicals are ready to make it hurt if Harris picks Shapiro.

Looked at one way, this puts Harris in a box. Not every anti-Israel Democrat is antisemitic. Most probably aren’t. But some are, and if she doesn’t pick Shapiro, she will be seen as giving in to those demands. But if she does pick the governor, she will win the opprobrium of pro-Palestinian voters, antisemitic or not. At this point, after all the speculation, to not pick him would be seen as a snub to Jews and Pennsylvanians. 

Looked at another way, though, it’s an extraordinary opportunity for Harris to continue her journey to the center for the general election. She is in a box, and snubbing Shapiro would be a costly decision that Republicans would surely capitalize on. But the vice president’s husband, Douglas Emhoff, is also Jewish, regardless of former President Donald Trump’s estimations. She should be personally offended at even the suggestion that Shapiro’s faith or ethnicity is a problem to parts of her party.

She should show it: Pick Shapiro and take the opportunity to speak out against antisemitism and make a virtue of the moment to say that she won’t be bullied, even by her own party.

Holy croakano! We welcome your feedback, so please email us with your tips, corrections, reactions, amplifications, etc. at STIREWALTISMS@THEDISPATCH.COM. If you’d like to be considered for publication, please include your real name and hometown. If you don’t want your comments to be made public, please specify.

STATSHOT

General Election

Donald Trump: 42.8% (↑ 0.8 points from last week)
Kamala Harris: 43.0%  (↑ 1.0)
Robert F. Kennedy Jr: 5.6% (↓ 0.6)

[Average includes: Wall Street Journal: Trump 44% – Harris 45% – Kennedy 4%; New York Times/Siena: Trump 43% – Harris 44% – Kennedy 5%; Ipsos/Reuters: Trump 42% – Harris 43% – Kennedy 7%; Marist/NPR/PBS: Trump 42% – Harris 42% – Kennedy 7%;  Yahoo News: Trump 43% – Harris 41% – Kennedy 5%]

Generic Ballot

Democrats: 46.0% (↑ 0.6 points from last week)

Republicans: 45.8% (↑ 0.4)

[Average includes: Wall Street Journal: 46% Democrats – 48% Republicans; Echelon Insights: 48% Democrats – 47% Republicans; Noble Predictive Insights: 43% Democrats – 44% Republicans; NBC News: 47% Democrats – 46% Republicans; Marist/NPR/PBS: 46% Democrats – 44% Republicans] 

TIME OUT: JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH

New York Times: “In the middle of North America, there is a portal to the deep recesses of Earth’s rocky interior. The portal’s mouth — a furrowed pit about half a mile wide — spirals 1,250 feet into the ground. … For 126 years, this site in Lead, S.D., housed the Homestake Mine, the deepest and most productive gold mine on the continent. In 2006, the Barrick Gold Corporation donated the mine to the state of South Dakota, which converted it into the largest subterranean laboratory in the United States. … Whereas the surface world was snowy and well below freez­ing, a mile down it was about 90 degrees with nearly 100 percent humidity. Heat seemed to pulse through the rock surrounding us, and the air was thick and cloying. … Here we were, deep within Earth’s crust — a place where, without human intervention, there would be no light and little oxygen — yet life was literally gush­ing from rock. … The peculiar microbes that dwell deep within the planet’s crust today may most closely resemble some of the earliest single-celled organisms that ever existed.” 

HARRIS PREPS BATTLEGROUND BLITZ, SHAPIRO SPECULATION GROWS

Axios: “Vice President Kamala Harris will hold her first campaign rally with her running mate in Philadelphia on Tuesday. The location — and urgency from the campaign to secure donor checks in the coming days — has raised speculation about Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, who’s on top of Harris’ short list of vice presidential picks. … The Philly campaign rally will kick off a tour of seven battleground states next week, which includes stops in western Wisconsin, Detroit and Raleigh, North Carolina. … Harris’ campaign is pressing Wall Street donors to cut their checks as soon as possible, citing a financial rule that bars contributions to tickets featuring a sitting governor. … Shapiro is seen as a moderate Democrat who can appeal to independent voters and shore up support for Harris in a critical battleground state that Democrats narrowly carried in 2020. Philly Democrats and powerful union leaders are throwing their support behind him.” 

Vice President Secretary Mayor Pete? Donors pull for Hoosier: New York Times: “Members of this close-knit network of wealthy Democrats are again trying to propel Mr. Buttigieg to higher office. … People involved in the process see him as something of a long shot, given the popular Democrats, including a senator and several governors, under consideration. … If he is not chosen as her No. 2, Ms. Harris’s ascent could be a serious obstacle for the highly ambitious Mr. Buttigieg, especially if she wins in November. It would be unclear what national office Mr. Buttigieg could reach for in the meantime, perhaps leaving him eyeing statewide office or the private sector. … Mr. Buttigieg’s donor network, however, is an asset some other contenders cannot match.” 

Harris passes delegate threshold to win nomination: Associated Press: “Vice President Kamala Harris has secured enough votes from delegates to become her party’s nominee for president, Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison said Friday. The announcement was made before the online voting process ends on Monday, reflecting the breakneck speed of a campaign that is eager to maintain momentum. … The Democratic National Committee did not provide details of the delegate vote count, including a number or state-by-state breakdowns, during a virtual event that had the flavor of a telethon, with campaign officials keeping tabs on a delegate-counting process whose result is a foregone conclusion. … Democrats still plan a state-by-state roll call during the party’s convention, the traditional way that a nominee is chosen. However, that will be purely ceremonial because of the online voting.” 

Candidate swap offers Dems hope in Georgia: Politico: “When Joe Biden last left Atlanta after his abysmal debate performance, Democrats felt hopeless about their chances in Georgia. … Kamala Harris’s Tuesday rally at the Georgia State Convocation Center … left them optimistic, but still far from certain about both. … The vice president’s appeal to voters of color and younger voters, combined with a recent pivot to the center that could persuade suburbanites and a general new-candidate shine, has created an opening in Georgia and other Sun Belt states that seemed unlikely for Biden. … The campaign Harris has now inherited has 24 field offices and more than 170 coordinated staff, with 2,500 volunteers participating in more than 174 events across the state last weekend. … But her supporters acknowledge the investment Harris has personally made in Georgia, visiting the state now 15 times as vice president.” 

Rate cut could scramble fall campaign: Wall Street Journal: “By opening the door wider to an interest-rate cut in September, the Federal Reserve is on a collision course with the presidential election. … Delivering a rate cut ahead of the election could rile up Republicans and former President Donald Trump, but withholding a needed reduction could undermine the economy and upset Democrats. … Fed Chair Jerome Powell … fiercely disputed accusations that the Fed would be influenced by politics. ‘We never use our tools to support or oppose a political party, a politician or any political outcome,’ Powell said. … Trump allies have signaled that they will turn up the political heat on Powell if he moves ahead with a rate cut in September. They fear it could boost sentiment and hand Democrats a triumphant talking point about the economy.” 

LAKE ADVANCES TO NOVEMBER SHOWDOWN WITH GALLEGO
Politico: “MAGA star Kari Lake will face off against Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego in Arizona as the GOP tries to claw back power in a state that has become a high-stakes battleground. Gallego and Lake easily clinched their respective parties’ nominations Tuesday for the Senate seat. … Gallego was uncontested in his primary, and Lake fended off two candidates, including Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb, her closest competition. … Gallego had already dropped more than $15 million on advertisements in the lead-up to the primary, with an additional $18 million booked through November. … Lake is working to expand her appeal to a broader electorate and court establishment Republicans, some of whom are still skeptical of her following the hard-right profile she cultivated for herself just a couple of years ago. … With fewer than 100 days to go until Election Day, there are clear signs Lake still has plenty of work to do.”

Poll: Slotkin ahead of Rodgers in Michigan: Detroit News: “Democrat Elissa Slotkin holds a nearly 5 percentage point lead in the closely watched race for Michigan’s open U.S. Senate seat over Republican Mike Rogers. … The poll of 600 likely Michigan voters … found that Slotkin, a three-term congresswoman from Holly, garnered 46% to 41% for Rogers, a former seven-term congressman from Brighton. About 13% of voters remain undecided. … The survey shows Slotkin ahead among independent voters by nearly 15 percentage points ― 44% to Rogers’ 29%. … Rogers and Slotkin are both facing challengers in their respective parties ahead of the Aug. 6 primary election.”

Brown narrowly leads as Trump cruises in Ohio: Politico: “Sherrod Brown holds a 4-point lead over his GOP opponent in Ohio, according to a new poll out Thursday morning. But the details underscore just how challenging it will be for the vulnerable Democrat to overcome his state’s Republican lean to clinch a fourth term. … The poll shows Brown leading Republican nominee Bernie Moreno, 46 percent to 42 percent, with 12 percent choosing another candidate or undecided. But the same poll gives former President Donald Trump a 9-point lead over Vice President Kamala Harris in the presidential race, 48 percent to 39 percent. … So how is Brown outrunning the top of the ticket? He has a double-digit lead among independents and is winning 14 percent of Republicans — while Harris is tied with Trump among independents and captures only 7 percent of Republicans. That’s likely the kind of overperformance he’ll need to beat Moreno in Ohio.” 

BRIEFLY

Longtime Rep. Marcy Kaptur leads in Ohio battleground—Inside Elections

Alaska’s Mary Peltola earns NRA endorsement, a rarity for Democrats—The Hill

Abe Hamadeh set for Congress after besting Blake Masters in Arizona primary—Arizona Mirror

Recount confirms Rep. Bob Good’s bad news—AP

WITHIN EARSHOT: PAGING MR. HERMAN

“They called us weird so I’ll call them weirder. That’s what I used to do back in high school.”—GOP Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida offers up a strategy to counteract the Democratic word of the week. 

MAILBAG

“‘Will Kamala Harris run to the middle?’ is an interesting question.  An even more interesting question is whether it will matter.  Joe Biden ran as a moderate and tacked to the middle during the campaign, but throughout his administration he caved to the progressive base of the Democratic Party.  Even worse (IMO) is that he frequently attempted to play to both sides of every issue and so pleased neither. He grudgingly granted support to Ukraine but feared escalation so put restrictions on its use until he was forced to relent by circumstances. He pledged to support Israel, but his party demanded that he show even more concern for the Gazans, even to the level of accepting and parroting Hamas’ narratives, and criticized Israel’s processing of the war at every opportunity. He went along with progressives on student loans forgiveness via executive order, he made unforgivable statements meant to delegitimize the Supreme Court, he made judicial appointments of what can only be described as radical leftists (Sen. Kennedy’s questionings of nominees in the Senate Judiciary Committee are enlightening), he allocated trillions to the left’s climate change agenda (the Inflation Reduction Act, i.e. the Green New Deal), etc. My point being that even if Harris runs to the middle I doubt that the electorate will believe her based on her record as well as that of the Biden administration.”—Richard Bross, Stafford, Virginia

Mr. Bross,

You’d be surprised what the electorate would believe! 

That Donald Trump is a moderate? How about Barack Obama? Neither was true, but many voters believed these things because they wanted to believe them.

What successful politicians do is give voters cues that help them to rationalize choices they would not make on rational grounds. In 2008, Obama won nearly 1 in 10 self-identified Republicans, 20 percent of conservatives, and 60 percent of moderates. In 2016, Trump beat Hillary Clinton among moderates and got 15 percent of self-described liberals. 

But “self-described” is the key to these things. Trump and his detractors would both likely say that he is “conservative.” But what does that mean? We could safely say that he is “right wing,” but not a conservative in the sense we typically understood it for the past 130 years. He’s maybe a reactionary and certainly sometimes extreme, but most often he gets the plain old conservative label.

So what’s a moderate? 

That one is even fuzzier, since it carries zero ideological baggage. Is Mitt Romney a moderate? Sure. How about Mark Warner? Yepyepyep. But they seldom vote together, and outside of foreign policy, have profound disagreements on most matters. What makes them moderate, aside from the occasional willingness to buck their own parties, is their styles. They’re pleasant, civil, and respectful. 

It’s the same for voters. The people who think of themselves as moderates may just mean that they’re normal or nice or, ahem, not weird. But they may hold positions that others would find extreme. Then there’s geography. A New Jersey moderate is different from an Alabama moderate who is different from a Minnesota moderate and so on.

We’ve previously discussed President Biden’s “bad umpire” approach to moderation, in which he makes bad calls against both sides in an attempt to average out his place on the ideological spectrum. When he upsets the left, he doesn’t take the win with the center and vice versa.

But we have to remember that the most persuadable voters are the least ideological. If they cared deeply about ideological stances they’d already probably be Republicans or Democrats. There are Rs and Ds at the margins who can be chipped off by candidates who offer them ideological cover on policy issues, but the governing third of the electorate that swings back and forth is the portion most likely to go on vibes.

Harris can strive to seem moderate in style and moderate compared other Democrats, and that might be enough.

All best,

c 

You should email us! Write to STIREWALTISMS@THEDISPATCH.COM with your tips, kudos, criticisms, insights, rediscovered words, wonderful names, recipes, and, always, good jokes. Please include your real name—at least first and last—and hometown. Make sure to let us know in the email if you want to keep your submission private. My colleague, the knowledgeable Nate Moore, and I will look for your emails and then share the most interesting ones and my responses here. Clickety clack!

CUTLINE CONTEST: BEING AND NOTHINGNESS 

Another great photo, another bumper crop of great entries. It’s going to be great fun as you all try your riffs on the new presumptive Democratic nominee. We ended up with a lot of similar entries this week as contestants used common, emerging tropes about Harris. But our winner found a way to turn what was in the zeitgeist into a canny political observation. Bravo!

“So I guess we’re about to find out if my what can be can indeed be burdened by my what has been.”—Bob Lepine, Little Rock, Arkansas

Winner, Tautologists Division:

“You see, folks, that the plane is blue and white, in the same sense that blue and white are the colors of the plane.”—Steve Wilson, Batavia, Ohio

Winner, Crowdstrike Division:

“Vice President Kamala Harris explains why she doesn’t fly Delta.”—Linda McKee, DuBois, Pennsylvania

Winner, It’s Always Sunny Division: 

“So, anyway, I started blastin’.”—Jack Funke, Poplar Bluff, Missouri

Winner, Insiders Edition Division:

“There it was. I could not believe it. But there was a bone in my boneless chicken wing.”—Allen Hardcastle, Lincoln, California

Winner, How the Sausage Is Made Division:

“Brat? Wrong person. You want to know about brats, you gotta ask Steve Hayes.”—Richard Basuk, New York, New York

July winner 

I tried to resist an inside joke from a niche pop culture product. Really I did, but I couldn’t help myself. Our July winner and the seventh entrant into our annual ham derby is Alex Fordney of Chattanooga, Tennessee, with the following cutline for this photo of President Joe Biden partially hidden behind a door: “You can always tell a Milford Man.”

But in my defense, there is a politically relevant episode of Arrested Development. “The Immaculate Election” from the second season, which also features the introduction of Tobias Fünke as the superb Mrs. Featherbottom, gives us the attack ad produced by G.O.B. Bluth for the student government campaign of his nephew, George Michael. C’mon!

Please send us your mailing address, Mr. Fordney, so that we can ship you your reward: a Bluth Company notepad made for Fox Television as part of the show’s promotional materials. It could be considered “light treason” to do otherwise.

LOOKING SHARP

Delish: “Gymnast Giorgia Villa scored a silver medal with her team in Tuesday’s all-around final at the 2024 Paris Olympics, but the Italian athlete is still going home with a gold … wheel of cheese. Villa has won the hearts of fans thanks to her partnership with Parmigiano-Reggiano—and the steady stream of cheese-related photos that have come along with it. … ‘Giorgia Villa being sponsored by parmesan cheese might be the biggest flex in history,’ a Twitter user chimed in. … She has continued to post with the cheese. There was Villa eating parm on the beam. Villa eating parm outside. Villa eating parm and reading. … Unable to compete in the individual all-around final due to a recurring back injury, it looks as if Villa is ready to pack up her silver medal, parmesan cheese wheels … and head back to Italy.”

Nate Moore contributed to this report.