What’s next for Josh Shapiro?
“Pennsylvanians elected me to a four-year term as their Governor, and my work here is far from finished.”
Josh Shapiro is not going to be the next vice president, but is that actually a good thing for Pennsylvania’s Jewish governor?
It might be, according to several pollsters and operatives.
“If he had been picked by Kamala Harris, he would, in many ways, turn his future over to someone else,” said Chris Borick, a pollster at Muhlenberg College in Allentown.
“He will finish out his term in Pennsylvania and win a second term,” said Jill Zipin, the chair of Democratic Jewish Outreach Pennsylvania. “He’s done amazing things for our state from infrastructure to helping small pharmacies to funding schools to protecting democracy.”
“There’s benefits for Shapiro not to be more closely attached to the anti-Israel Kamala Harris and her extreme positions,” added Mort Klein of the Zionist Organization of America. “Which sets him up beautifully to be the likely Democratic candidate in four to eight years.”
Media reports indicated that Shapiro himself felt this ambivalence. According to an Aug. 6 New York Times article, he asked what his role would be as vice president; Walz said he would do whatever the team needed.
In a statement after the decision, Shapiro devoted multiple paragraphs to his duty to Pennsylvanians.
“As I’ve said repeatedly over the past several weeks, the running mate decision was a deeply personal decision for the Vice President — and it was also a deeply personal decision for me,” he said. “Pennsylvanians elected me to a four-year term as their Governor, and my work here is far from finished.”
“Serving as the 48th Governor of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is the highest honor of my life — showing up in your communities, listening to and learning from you, and then working across the aisle to get stuff done and deliver results for you,” he continued. “In just 19 months, we’ve made a meaningful, positive impact in peoples’ lives, and I’m proud of how Americans all across the country have taken notice of what we’re accomplishing here in Pennsylvania.”
Then he devoted the final paragraph to his enthusiastic support for the Harris-Walz ticket.
“I know that Governor Tim Walz is an exceptionally strong addition to the ticket who will help Kamala move our country forward. Over the next 92 days, I look forward to traveling all across the Commonwealth to unite Pennsylvanians behind Kamala Harris’ campaign to defeat Donald Trump, become the 47th President of the United States, and build a better future for our country,” he concluded.
That night, Shapiro delivered a rousing speech at the Harris-Walz rally in his own backyard: Temple University in Philadelphia.
He praised Harris:
“Kamala Harris has always understood that you’ve got to be — every day — for the people,” he said.
He praised Walz:
“Tim Walz is a great man. Tim Walz is an outstanding governor. Tim Walz is a teacher. Tim Walz is a (National) Guardsman. Tim Walz is a great patriot.”
And he delivered a scathing criticism of Trump:
“It’s not freedom to tell our children what books they’re allowed to read. That’s not freedom. It’s not. It’s not freedom to say you can go to work but you can’t join a union. That’s not freedom. It’s not freedom to tell women what they can do with their bodies. That’s not freedom. It’s not. And it sure as hell isn’t freedom to say you can go vote, but he’s going to pick the winner. You know what Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are for? They are for real freedom.”
Through it all, the governor played the hits from his 2022 campaign that ended with a blowout victory, 15 percentage points, over Republican Doug Mastriano.
In his statement, he quoted his favorite line from the Talmud: “My faith teaches me that no one is required to complete the task, but neither are we free to refrain from it.”
In that quote above about Trump, he positioned Democratic policies as “real freedom.”
Later in that speech, he told the crowd of more than 12,000 that, “Each of us has a responsibility to get off the sidelines, to get in the game and to do our part.” PJC
Jarrad Saffren writes for the Jewish Exponent, an affiliated publication where this first appeared.
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