Pennsylvania is in play and may end up in the win column for former President Donald Trump.
When historians write the saga of why Vice President Kamala Harris failed in her presidential bid, they may attribute it to one fatal choice: Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her VP pick.
When I watched Ohio Sen. JD Vance take apart Walz in the vice-presidential debate, I imagined the Democratic governor of Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro, sparring with Vance.
Shapiro would have held his own against Vance and perhaps scored a few points.
So, why didn’t Harris pick Shapiro, a slam-dunk choice who enjoys immense popularity in a state that she needs to win?
The first reason underlines why Harris does no real interviews and can’t answer basic questions about solutions to inflation and the illegal immigrant crisis. Shapiro would upstage her. He is much better on his feet and has a much more commanding speaking style, not to mention a commanding grasp of the issues. People would wonder why he is not at the top of the ticket.
The second reason he wasn’t chosen intersects with the anniversary of the Oct. 7 terror attack on Israel. Shapiro, who is Jewish, not only called out the horrors of the Oct. 7—horrific attacks by Hamas on Israelis—he pointed out the hatred and antisemitism on many college campuses protesting against Israel and told university officials to remove the encampments.
Shapiro forcefully and eloquently laid out the case against the haters.
Despite his political talents and the fact that he might have carried Pennsylvania for Harris, it seems clear that the far-left Democrats found his defense of Israel and Jewish college students abhorrent.
On the first anniversary of Oct. 7, the Anti-Defamation League released data indicating antisemitic attacks increased by 200 percent over the past year. And at least 1,200 of the 10,000 reported incidents occurred on college campuses.
I have found few, if any, messages from college and university presidents on the anniversary reminding people of the savagery of the original attacks and the fact that rape and torture were not acts of rogue outliers but the policy of Hamas when it massacred innocent Israelis.
The national office of The Council on American Islamic Relations issued a statement that read, “ On the first anniversary of the Oct. 7 attacks and the start of the genocide in Gaza, we reiterate our condemnation of such violence and demand that President Biden use American power to end this year-long disaster. It is long past time for President Biden to force Benjamin Netanyahu to accept a comprehensive ceasefire deal that ends Israel’s genocide in Gaza,” On the same day, Vice President Harris, in a “60 Minutes” interview, refused to say that President Netanyahu was an ally of the United States.
I visited Israel on a tour with 30 of my listeners, and I came away with a deep sense of Israel’s need for security. I support its need to continue to hunt down members of the terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah.
But stopping Israel from rooting out Hamas in Gaza is where many in the Democratic Party have landed, and each week we get further away from the memory of Oct. 7, the more they will push for a ceasefire.
Amanda Greenberg, writing at Broad + Liberty, makes the point many try to disguise as DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion). She writes, “According to believers of DEI, Jews are “White” and are, therefore, oppressors.”
This oppressor-colonizer narrative that’s now taught in many schools plays into the ongoing criticism of Israel and is used ultimately to mitigate the appalling Oct. 7 attacks.
So, as we move past the first anniversary of Oct. 7, I contend that Josh Shapiro was not chosen as the Democratic vice-presidential candidate because of bias. The Democrats will see the result of that bias when Trump wins Pennsylvania and is once again president of the United States.
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