The guessing game about who Kamala Harris will choose as her running mate is well underway, and there are as many uninformed opinions on this subject as the number of people over 40 who understand the new meaning of “brat.”
I’ve seen some who wish Kamala would choose Pete Buttigieg, but I think they’re overestimating the American public. While this century has already seen a Black man as President and is hopefully about to elect a Black/Asian woman to the top spot, it is unfortunately still not ready for a gay man to become Vice President.
Sadly, despite Kamala having a Jewish husband (who’ll be in charge of the space lasers), the same bigotry would hinder Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro (who is also Jewish) from being her running mate. It is not antisemitic to say that, it’s simply reading the room and recognizing electoral reality in the USA.
If you want progress in this country, you have to move the line one step at a time. And then hope the Supreme Court doesn’t push it back 50 years.
On Sunday, immediately after Biden made his stepping-aside announcement and endorsed Harris to take his place on the ballot, former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg urged them not to make such a hasty decision. He insisted they “take the pulse of voters” and “determine who is best positioned to win.” This is the kind of political expertise we’ve grown to expect from a man whose own presidential campaign in 2020 spent a billion dollars but only lasted long enough for him to lock up the delegate from American Samoa. Not exactly an expert on pulse-taking.
Hardly a day goes by without my phone receiving a spam text message from some politician (from one party or the other) begging for campaign contributions. And they won’t stop, because when Congress enacted the Do Not Call Registry just over two decades ago, they exempted themselves! So that’s a law that will never be changed in our favor, unfortunately. As soon as I see those messages, I always click “Delete And Report Junk.” But that seems to be about as effective as the button you push to get the traffic lights to change when you want to cross the street.
One last item: at Kamala’s first presidential rally in Wisconsin yesterday, there was more enthusiasm than I recall seeing at a Democratic presidential candidate’s event since Barack Obama in 2008. My favorite part was when she said that, unlike Trump, her campaign is about the future, and the crowd responded by chanting, “We’re Not Going Back! We’re Not Going Back!” That slogan should be part of every speech she gives. And if it’s not on t-shirts and campaign signs already, her staff has missed an opportunity.