Senate Census Kamala Harris - VP choice predictions?

It's for ideological/class reasons but dressed up as objuective.

 

@Vaderize03
Unfortunately he made rather unpleasant comments about the protestors and Israel.

Now, it's debatable how much leftists really matter to win the elections on one side, and how much Shapiro would increase the chances of winning PA on the other side.
The perception I have is that Gaza is the last thing Harris should be willing to have (additional) controversies about. So if I had to speculate, she'll keep this aspect into serious consideration and maybe pick someone else eventually.

In my opinion, Harris should be fine if she just runs as essentially a continuation of Biden with the exception of Gaza. She has strongly hinted at the fact that her views on Gaza are different, but choosing Shapiro would be a message in the opposite direction.

 

That's the dilemna. And while the President does have the final say, not the VP, politics is all about perception.

The thing is, the announcement is going to have to come today or tomorrow, since the first campaign rally is on Tuesday.

 

The thing is, Harris's VP nominee could easily become president one day-- if something happens to her, or if he runs for president on his own (every Democratic VP since Humphrey has). And while it's one of the more salient issues, Shapiro isn't just bad on Gaza and in the response to protesters. The UAW and labor generally don't want him for good reason.

 

Wrt Shapiro this alone is reason enough not to pick him:

 

Because he's a three-dotted cloud?

 

Oh I know, for sure. He's been my least favorite choice for a while. I'm more trying to talk myself into being open-minded to changing my opion of him... it's only half-working.

Who would you prefer out of the 6 they confirmed to be vetting?

 

Tim Walz

Responsible for effective Dem messaging shift, isn’t in a swing state, has none of Shapiro’s baggage, only con is that he’s old

 

Both he and Harris were born in 1964.

 

it's more appropriate to compare him to other VP contenders. Mark Kelly being bald makes him look younger.

 

Nah, for a VP pick age is an absolute parameter, and 60 is young enough for it not to be an issue.

 

I hope the real reason is that Cooper doesn't want to leave his nutjob lieutenant governor in charge.

 

I actually know a great deal about this case.

One of the doctor's on my medical society board repeatedly brings this up at meetings (he's a HUGE Trumper and I've had to rule him out-of-order numerous times as board chair). It certainly is suspicious but it looks more like bad behavior on the part of the Philadelphia police/DA's office than Josh Shapiro.

That being said, there's already been so much controversy surrounding him that I think Kamala is going to end up going with someone else. You don't want to start off your campaign with your VP pick facing real dirt, and he is.

 

Don't all of the remaining three VP picks have baggage? Even Tim Walz, who seems to be the internet's favorite pick was backed by the NRA at one point.

I don't know, my politics are always further to the left than most elected Democrats, and most Democrats in general so to some extent I've accepted that there's always going to be something disappointing about the Dems. Unfortunately there's never going to be a moment where the politics of Democratic voters and politicians mirror the politics of Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky. It's largely always going to be a centrist party that only occasionally supports progressive change.

That's a roundabout way of saying that I'm going to be really frustrated if people on the left don't vote because they don't like the VP pick. The collective baggage of Kelly, Shapiro, and Walz is nothing compared to Trump and JD Vance and what they'll do if they're in the White House.

 

Yeah, all probably have baggage… haven’t heard too much about Kelly or Beshear having baggage, but maybe there hasn’t been enough digging yet. I know Walz being governor during COVID and the George Floyd protests could be a thing, and he had a DUI some decades ago but that was known in Minnesota before he was elected. And there’s all this about Shapiro.

For those who wanted a contested convention… imagine how this VP process has been, but for the top choice… it would have been painful (especially since delegates would decide, not voters). And it shows that there really is no ideal candidate for the Democrats. But that’s politics, they’re all humans too.

 

As a centrist-leaning Dem myself, I'm with you on that one. Still can't believe so many made the choice to stay home in 2016 instead of voting against Trump.

 

I’ve seen a few people say Kamala Harris is anti-Semitic if she doesn’t pick Shapiro (not that many but a few). So it goes both ways.

 

Zionists will say this about anyone who criticizes a Zionist, yeah.

 

Shapiro is the only Jewish person who was considered!

Except Pritzker. He's Jewish and people wouldn't have the same problem with him. But Shapiro is the only Jewish person being considered who likes cracking college students' skulls.

 

At this point, they've been specifically told that if you have a problem with the VP, you shouldn't vote for the ticket. So it's just going to be doing what they were told to do by the mainstream Democratic supporters.

 

I think this kind of rhetoric is ridiculous coming from either side of the issue. Cooling the temperature is the only way a solution will ever be found.

Who said that?

 

I think the people criticizing the people complaining about Shapiro for the last week or two don’t get it… the decision wasn’t made yet, they/we are trying to influence the decision to someone with less baggage on the I/P issue. Most will still vote for the ticket due to the stakes. But don’t criticize us for trying to use the only influence we have over the ticket for this presidential cycle. It’s not like we can vote for the top of the ticket this time after Biden ended his campaign so late. This is the only way to democratically exercise our voice right now.

 

Everyone that argued that a vote for Biden was a vote for Harris (either in the general election or the primaries) was also arguing that if you don't want to vote for the VP, you can't vote for the president. When you specifically say that a vote for the top of the ticket is the same as having just voted for the bottom of the ticket, you are also telling anyone that doesn't want to vote for the bottom of the ticket that the only way to avoid that is to not vote for the top of the ticket, either.

It's a clear part of the statement in things like "It has to be Harris. Why does everyone think you can skip over the VP and the millions who voted for Joe and her will just be okay with that?" and "Not only the majority of the Democratic Party but the entire United States voted for Kamala Harris when Joe Biden was oldest nominee in history."
If a vote for Harris will be taken as an explicit endorsement of the VP for president even in a separate term, then the only way to not be confused as endorsing the VP for president for that is to not vote for Harris.

Now, of course, people could understand that a vote for Harris could mean multiple things and not read more into it than winning this election, but it's been made clear that will not be the case, and that people will argue when Harris doesn't run again, that her VP will already have the support of anyone that voted Harris on the basis of having been on the same ticket.