The Democratic party has said that they will hold a virtual roll call of all the delegates before August 7th, before the national convention that starts on August 19th, to finalize their presidential nominee. The original reason for the August 7th deadline was because Ohio requires parties to identify their nominees by that date in order to be on the ballot in November. Ohio governor Mike DeWine had extended that deadline to cover the Democratic convention dates but it looks like the party has decided to abide by that date anyway. While there is no requirement that a vice-presidential pick also be made by then, the Harris campaign has said that they will have one maybe even earlier, within the next week, and so the campaigns for different candidates are gaining steam.

There seems to an effort to promote Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro. He is supposedly a strong campaigner and won the governorship quite easily in 2022 by a margin of 56% to 42%. But his opponent in that race was the Trump-endorsed far-right extremist Doug Mastriano who alienated many groups with his extremist rhetoric and stances.

While Pennsylvania’s 19 electoral votes are important, progressives are arguing that Shapiro would be a bad choice that would harm the Harris candidacy in other ways. Michael Moore laid out the case against him earlier and now Norman Solomon and Jeff Cohen further argue why he would be a bad choice because of his extremely uncritical pro-Israel views and harsh condemnation of all those who are critical of Israel’s actions, even in the face of the genocide being perpetrated against the people of Gaza, and also because of his support for fracking and tax subsidies for private schools.

Kamala Harris has gained strong support as the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate. Putting Josh Shapiro, the governor of Pennsylvania, on the ticket would risk fracturing that support.

The most divisive issue among Democrats is the U.S.-enabled Israeli war against the civilian population of Gaza. To unify the party and defeat Trump’s MAGA forces, Harris needs to distance herself in a meaningful way from Joe Biden’s Gaza policy. If she does so, she can win back the votes and energy of young activists, progressives, racial justice organizers, Arab Americans and Muslims — many of whom devoted weeks or months of their lives in 2020 to defeating Trump on behalf of the Biden-Harris ticket.
…

If Harris now chooses a running mate who strongly connects her to Biden’s policies on the Gaza war, which are widely unpopular with much of the Democratic base, party unity — and the chances of defeating Donald Trump — would be undermined.
…

But a Harris-Shapiro ticket would jeopardize all that.

In a July 23 tweet on X, progressive leader and former Ohio state Sen. Nina Turner wrote: “Choosing Governor Josh Shapiro for Vice President would be a mistake. Governor Shapiro compared pro-peace protesters to the KKK. That’s simply unacceptable & would stifle the momentum VP Harris has. Hopefully she is looking to build a broad coalition to beat Trump.”

A broad coalition to defeat Donald Trump and the fascistic MAGA movement is exactly what we need. Making Josh Shapiro the nominee for vice president would create internal conflict within that coalition, which is exactly what we don’t need.

I hope she chooses Minnesota governor Tim Walz.

Quite often, these leaked short lists of vice-presidential candidates are a feint, a way to show various constituencies that a person from their group is being considered, with names being floated even after the presidential nominee has decided whom they want. The vetting process for that person is the only one that matters.

In the case of JD Vance, it is clear that either the vetting was lousy or that serial sex abuser and convicted felon Donald Trump (SSACFT) decided to ignore the many warning signs that must have cropped up. Why would he do that? When asked why he picked Vance, SSACFT said that it was because Vance liked him more than all the other candidates. I actually believe him. SSACFT loves sycophants and bootlickers because they cater to his vanity and narcissism and Vance has been working overtime to compete with all the other fawning people.