The Minnesota Walz

Kamala Harris chose Tim.

Just not the Tim I hoped for.

Tim Walz is the governor of Minnesota, and he is popular in his state for progressive actions such s codifying legal abortion, providing school lunches, and ensuring the prosecution of Derek Chauvin for killing George Floyd.  He's also an average small-town guy, the sort of fella who's more comfortable in a bar or  lodge meeting than an ambassador's reception.  He's likely to talk more about meat-and-potatoes than issues involving initials, and he's more likely to eat meat and potatoes than the fancy food on the menu of Le Cirque or Maison Robert.  He's the most plain-speaking Democrat to run for national office since Harry Truman.

As for the also-rans . . .  Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona was apparently seen as too much of  maverick for some of his disagreements with President Biden over domestic policy.  Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro my have been to pro-Israel regarding the Gaza War, though by all accounts he preferred Harrisburg over Harris.

"Pennsylvanians elected me to a four-year term as their Governor, and my work here is far from finished," Shapiro said in a statement.  "There is a lot more stuff I want to get done for the good people of this Commonwealth."  

This choice raises obvious questions.  Can Walz help Harris win the battleground states in the Midwest?  What governing qualities would he bring to a Harris administration?  How come Pennsylvania and three other states call themselves "commonwealths?"  Except for that last question, these - and other questions to be asked - will be answered soon enough.  But in the meantime, everyone in the Democratic Party is celebrating the choice and Harris continues to be on a roll.   

Tim Ryan For Veep?

The Harris campaign is planning to announce its vice presidential pick at  rally in Philadelphia next week, and you don't need  psychic to predict it's going to be Josh Shapiro, the governor of Pennsylvania.  I have  problem, guys, with that choice, not because Shapiro is Jewish, but because he's only been governor since January 2023 and therefore does not have an extensive record.  Or maybe this is a tease and Vice President Harris will take the stage in Philly with someone else.  Other potential candidates include Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona and Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota.    

Here's a name I'd like to suggest that no one else has suggested.  How about former U.S. Representative Tim Ryan of Ohio?  

Tim Ryan is one of those reasons I have a fascination with American politics; a political hasbeen, he got shown up by Nancy Pelosi when he challenged her for the leadership of the House Democratic caucus, he was forced to end his 2020 bid for the Presidency in 2019 (long before Harris did the same), and he lost the least losable U.S. Senate election of 2022 to a tech bro who rose to fame as the author of  pseudo-memoir about growing up in the backwoods.  He's a three-time loser saddled with unrealized political ambition . . . yet you can't help loving him.   

So why Ryan?  Mainly because he won't be House Speaker, he won't be President, and he has two chances of winning higher office from Ohio, be it the governorship in 2026 or the Senate in 2028 - slim and fat.  But here are the positive reasons.  First of all, he's from a working-class background.  Second, he's from the Midwest.  He can't help Harris carry Ohio, but he can help her carry Michigan and Wisconsin - and Pennsylvania, which, I'm led to understand, is really in the Midwest, though it's technically in the Northeast.  As a guy from Youngstown,, Ryan practically lives next door to Pennsylvania.  (Josh Shapiro is from Abington, Pennsylvania, outside Philadelphia, which is one of those typical Acela Corridor suburbs where you see a lot of blue in people's politics but not in people's collars - take it from one who had a childhood in the Philly suburbs.) Third, he has twenty years of experience on Capitol Hill compared to Harris's four as a U.S. Senator from California.  Fourth, he came out and called for Harris to be the Democratic presidential nominee before President Biden dropped out; now he looks like a prophet.  Fifth, he'd be able to run against James David Vance - again!

But . . . since it's only my opinion, and I'm a nobody - more so than Ryan - he probably won't be Harris's running mate. Besides, he's probably hoping he can still be her Secretary of Labor . . .   

Sgt. Biden's Lonely Hearts Club

Let's play make-believe.  Pretend you're an artists-and-repertoire agent at Capitol Records.  It's the summer of 1967.   The Beatles' latest album, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, has been out for a month and it's a huge sales . . . flop.  (I told you, this is make-believe.).  You're under pressure to drop the Beatles from the label despite all of their major artistic and commercial successes beforehand, and there are complaints that the Fabs have gotten long in the tooth and that maybe what Capitol needs is a new artist in their place.  However, many of the Beatles' fans, hearing that the band might be dropped, write letters to Capitol demanding that they remain on the label.  Meanwhile, Capitol has the opportunity to poach an up-and-coming guitarist/singer, Jimi Hendrix, from Reprise after the failure of his latest single despite his well-received performance at the Monterey Pop Festival.  At the same time, Capitol has the opportunity to pick up another act from a minor label - the Peppermint Trolley Company. Capitol can sign either act to replace the Beatles - but not both. Despite a great deal of support for Hendrix, because his sound appeals to the rock audience - the strongest part of the label's customer base - there is also lot of support for the Peppermint Trolley Company, because some label insiders feel that Capitol needs a sunshine pop group to compete with Spanky and Our Gang at Mercury Records for middle-of-the-road record buyers. Or, the label can take another chance on the Beatles, who have indicated that they'll break up if they're dropped from their label in America. With Brian Wilson already causing problems for Capitol with the aborted recording sessions for the Beach Boys' Smile, the wrong decision could destroy the record company. It's your decision to make, and you don't know what to do. 

Well, except for the names and a few other changes, if you talk about the Democrats, it's the same situation.  Despite his past successes, President Biden is tanking right now and the Democratic Party is under pressure to drop him.  The party can either keep Biden at the top of the ticket or choose between two alternatives - Kamala Harris, who appeals to the party's black and/or female base, or an unknown generic candidate - say, a young governor - that many Democrats feel is what they need to compete with MAGA for middle-of-the-road independent voters.  All three choices carry risks, but without knowing what the future holds, there's at least a 67 percent chance of success, as there are two out of three paths that will lead to a Democratic victory in November.  But one of those choices is the wrong choice, and, bearing in mind that the down-ballot elections are threatened, if the Democrats make that choice, the party - and the country - will be destroyed.  But no one knows which door is the dreaded Door Number Three.  

I believe you already know what I think.  I'm convinced that naming a Josh Shapiro or a Wes Moore as the Democratic presidential nominee instead of Biden or Harris would be the political equivalent of Capitol dropping the Beatles and eschewing Jimi Hendrix for the Peppermint Trolley Company.

The Peppermint Trolley Company, by the way, was a real group.  They were the group that sang the theme song for "The Brady Bunch" in the opening titles for that sitcom's first season, only to be dropped thereafter when it became apparent that sunshine pop was a passing fancy.

Just like Josh Shapiro.

Playing With Fire

Boy, did I call the U.S. Senate Republican primary in Pennsylvania or what?  The race between Mehmet Oz and David McCormick is still too close to call, and it may not be decided for days.  Kathy Barnette wasn't even much of a factor.  But as entertaining as all that is, I must divert your attention to something far more serious that came out of the Pennsylvania gubernatorial primary.

On the Republican side, State Senator Doug Mastriano won the nomination, while Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro is the Democratic candidate.  Mastriano is a dangerous right-wing pro-Trump ideologue who was instrumental in bringing protesters to Washington on January 6, 2021 to demonstrate against the electoral vote count for the Presidency to help Trump stay in office.  He's also been subpoenaed by the January 6 House committee over his role in the demonstration.  The Shapiro campaign actually sent out flyers and ran TV ads to play up Mastriano because it figured that he was the easiest Republican gubernatorial candidate to defeat.

I can only draw one conclusion from this:  Democrats are incredibly stupid.  

Doesn't anyone remember how President Carter's 1980 re-election campaign wanted Ronald Reagan as the Republican opponent because the Carter campaign thought he was unelectable?  Didn't I bring up just recently that Hillary Clinton played up Donald Trump to ensure his nomination for President by the Republicans because she thought he'd be easy to defeat?  And, like Hillary with the Presidency, Shapiro was so formidable in his bid for governor of Pennsylvania that potential Democratic gubernatorial candidates decided not to run.  Unlike with Hillary, Shapiro had no opposition whatsoever.  His election to succeed term-limited, outgoing governor Tom Wolf is seen as - shhh!  - "inevitable."

Yeah, right.  Shapiro is playing a dangerous game.  Mastriano has a chance as long as Pennsylvania voters, like votes in other states, are dissatisfied with the way things are in the country, and polls show that they're not only dissatisfied, they're disgusted.  And they blame Democrats because they are the ones in power, including the leadership of Pennsylvania.  But if Mastriano wins the Pennsylvania governorship, he'll use the levers of power to ensure that Pennsylvania voters, if they vote for the 2024 Democratic presidential candidate, will have their choice overturned by a Republican Secretary of State (secretaries of state serve at the pleasure of the governor in Pennsylvania, not elected by the people) and a Republican legislature (the GOP has been successful in keeping the Pennsylvania legislature under their control), who will send electoral votes for the 2024 Republican presidential candidate to Washington to be tallied on January 6, 2025. 

As Lawrence O'Donnell noted this past week, Pennsylvania was where American democracy was started, and now it could be the place where American democracy ends.

Keystone Kops

Crazy things are going on in today's Pennsylvania primary elections.  On the Republican side, a racist black female conservative - she sounds like a Jerry Springer guest - has thrown a monkey wrench into things in the Senate nomination contest, while on the Democratic side, a tough guy with bad fashion sense and a heart of gold could beat a mainstream Democrat for their party's U.S. Senate nomination.

Kathy Barnette has surged in the polls for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania for the state's open seat, mainly for being farther to the right than even Donald Trump, bashing Muslims and gays while using her own circumstance - she's the result of her mother's rape - as an argument against all abortions.  Trump likes her and thinks she has a future but doesn't think she's ready for prime time now.  His choice is New Jersey resident (shh! - don't tell anyone! 😀) Mehmet Oz, a daytime TV show who says he's a doctor, though hedge-fund manager David McCormick is running a close race with him and could easily win the nomination by being more like Trump than Oz.  Now Barnette has made it a three-way tie in the polls, which means the election results could be unavailable for days.

On the Democratic side, Conor Lamb, a moderate congressman from the Pittsburgh area who looks so much like a senator that he could get away with wearing a toga, is well behind in the polls, with Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman, a Bernie Sanders-style progressive so causal he campaigns in sweatshirts and gym shorts, in the lead.  Lamb, a former Marine and a former assistant U.S. attorney,  has a dream candidate's resume in his favor . . . and that's all.  Pennsylvania Democrats have decided that a safe choice is no longer desirable, simply because they believe that a Senator Lamb could go to Washington and fail to get anything done because of the way the Senate "operates" these days.  Fetterman is seen as a fighter who will fight for core Democratic values.  Lamb is seen as someone who lives up to his surname.  

Independent commentator and Pennsylvania resident Michael Smerconish worries that Pennsylvania voters will be turned off in the fall by the possibility of extreme Senate candidates in a state where only registered party members can vote in primaries and independents have to stay home, and some Republicans are looking forward to a potential Oz-Fetterman race, thinking Oz can win such a match because of middle-class familiarity with the not-so-good doctor.  I'm not sure about that. Fetterman is a working-class hero who always talks about how blue-collar voters and the middle class constantly get screwed by the system, making him a populist at a time when populism is, well, popular.  He can sell progressive populism because he's a regular guy, not some coastal intellectual or some social-media-happy showhorse.       

Fetterman has one thing against him.  He suffered a stroke a few days ago.  How that plays into today's voting remains to be seen.  One thing I'd like to note; former Maryland governor Martin O'Malley has supported both Fetterman and Lamb in earlier elections, Fetterman for his previous U.S. Senate run and Lamb for his first U.S. House run.  O'Malley is neutral this time, mainly because he can't be bothered with any political campaigns other than his wife's bid for Maryland Attorney General.  

The gubernatorial primary is more straightforward.  Far rightist state senator and 2020 election result denier Doug Mastriano is a shoo-in for the Republican nomination while Pennsylvania Attorney Josh Shapiro is running for the Democratic nomination unopposed.  Both sides agree that Shapiro will likely win the governorship in a landslide in November if Mastriano is his opponent.