BY Larry Platt
Oct. 04, 2024
David Urban is a former lobbyist and one-time Arlen Specter chief of staff, West Point grad and former gridiron star-turned-CNN political commentator. He has been a Trump confidant, though one wonders if his clearheadedness has eroded his influence in the increasingly skewed TrumpWorld. During the postgame analysis of Tuesday night’s Vice Presidential debate, after so many talking heads ignored or glossed over Tim Walz’s terrible performance, it was Urban who said what many — Republicans and Democrats alike — were thinking.
“What would Josh Shapiro have done up there tonight?” he said. “My friend Gov. Josh Shapiro up on that stage with J.D. Vance, it would have been a world heavyweight slugfest between two really intellectually great candidates, and I just wonder if the Harris people are thinking: Maybe we should have picked Josh Shapiro.”
Let’s not sugarcoat this: Tim Walz is not ready for primetime. And I say this as someone who has been impressed by his everyman persona on the stump — but that’s when he’s reading from a teleprompter. Sure, in Tuesday’s debate, Walz’s inability to complete sentences could have been chalked up to nervousness. (Though don’t we want someone a heartbeat away from the presidency who demonstrates the ability to meet big moments, not shrink from them?)
But, in all of Walz’s word salads, did you hear one innovative or interesting idea? Did Walz say something that made you think, Huh, this guy’s thought deeply about this stuff? Did you hear Walz tear away at Vance’s lies? Trump saved Obamacare? Seriously? Isn’t the ability to think on one’s feet and communicate clearly a prerequisite for high public office, or has Trump destroyed all our expectations?
Yes, our politics need to be civil. The Citizen stands for that above all else. But they shouldn’t be falsely civil. The widespread agreement between Vance and Walz — owing to Walz’s inability to debate — and the seeming lovefest between the two men actually created a misimpression. With the exception of that one moment at the end, when Walz got Vance to revealingly evade the most basic of questions — “Did (Trump) lose the 2020 election?” — a viewer who knew nothing about the insurrection that year would have thought there was no candidate on the stage imperiling the rule of law.
Back in the 90s, Senator Bob Kerrey was among those who ran against Bill Clinton for president, and he was a thorn in Clinton’s side during the president’s term in office. Things got heated between them. At one point — quite presciently — Kerrey described Clinton as an “unusually good liar.” Once, on the Sunday morning shows, Kerrey was asked about that kind of tenor in our politics. “Running for president should be an argument,” he proferred.
I thought of Kerrey’s point while watching all the false Kumbaya of the Walz-Vance debate. By not actually debating, Walz was complicit in Vance’s goal to, in Van Jones’ words, “sane wash the crazy.”
So let’s dive into Urban’s point. A vice presidential nominee really has three jobs: To deliver his or her home state, preferably of the swing variety; to win or at least do no harm during a nationally televised debate; and to be something of an attack dog in holding the opposition to account so the presidential candidate more easily has the option of taking the high road when strategically called for.
Walz comes up short on all three. His state is solidly blue to begin with, and his debate performance allowed Vance to make himself seem like the reincarnation of Mitt Romney — smart, conservative but not divisive, personally empathetic. If you can’t bring yourself to witheringly criticize J.D. Vance, you don’t meet the Kerrey postulate for what’s needed in our politics: the art of persuasion.
Shapiro, on the other hand, delivers on all counts, as Urban intimated. Ever since the Democratic Convention, every political consultant I’ve talked to has told me the Dems should have taken seriously the Trump fears of a Shapiro V.P. candidacy. “It’s not rocket science,” one said. “Take Pennsylvania off the Republican map and it changes the whole race.”
Would Shapiro have taken PA off the map? It’s at least likely. Remember, in 2022 he far outperformed Biden‘s 2020 results, beating him by seven points among rural and non-college voters, and by nine points among Republicans. Shapiro won Cumberland, Luzerne and Berks counties, all of which had overwhelmingly voted for Trump In 2020. In polls, where Shapiro has a job approval rating in the 60s, he gets roughly 35 percent support amongst self-described MAGA voters.
Non-college educated voters comprise two-thirds of the battleground state electorate, and Harris remains far behind Biden among that cohort. Walz would seem to appeal to that bloc, but that’s not what the facts show.
“This argument is predicated on little more than identity politics: the idea that White working-class voters will be reassured by having someone who ‘looks like them’ on the Democratic ticket and thus be likelier to vote for Harris,” writes Michael Baharaeen at The Liberal Patriot. “A better way to approach the question of Walz’s value-add would be to take a look at the data — specifically, his actual electoral record with these voters.”
Turns out, Walz actually rode highly educated metro areas to the Minnesota governorship. Shapiro might not fit central casting for it, but he’s actually the guy who gets voters — Black and White — who shower after work.
But even if Walz’s constituency were what it’s assumed to be, his inarticulate debate performance should be giving Democrats pause right about now. To Urban’s point, on the day of the debate, Shapiro appeared on Ari Melber’s MSNBC show and exhibited the type of rhetorical jujitsu required to migrate folks to one’s point of view.
Melber challenged Shapiro to justify Harris’ apparent flip-flops on issues like fracking and Medicare for all. Shapiro spun her “evolution” as a sign of strength, positing that listening, learning and growing is actually a sign of political character. He then referenced one such stirring example from his own experience — see if you can imagine Tim Walz pulling off this nuanced of a political defense:
What Shapiro is referring to is that time early in his governorship, when he came to Mosaic Community Church in West Philly to announce not only that he would not sign any death warrants as governor, he’d also call for the abolishment of the death penalty. His remarks that day illustrate the difference between a calculated flip-flop and the type of act of conscience voters yearn for:
I want to be honest: My approach to capital punishment has evolved over time. For more than a decade, including when I assumed office as Attorney General, I believed that the death penalty should be reserved for the most heinous crimes — but that it was, indeed, a just punishment for those crimes. However, when the first capital cases came to my desk in the AG’s office, I found myself repeatedly unwilling to seek the death penalty. When my son asked me why it was OK to kill someone as a punishment for killing someone, I couldn’t look him in the eye and explain why.
In 2018, a gunman walked into the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill neighborhood and murdered 11 Jewish people as they worshiped, in the deadliest act of antisemitism in our nation’s history. It’s hard to imagine a more heinous crime than murdering 11 people as they pray. And candidly, my first reaction was that the killer deserved to be put to death. Over time, however, my belief on this topic has evolved. I’ve spoken to victims, to families, to advocates, and to community leaders. I listened to the members of the Tree of Life community and was blown away by their courage and their fortitude. They told me that even after all the pain and anguish, they did not want the killer put to death. He should spend the rest of his life in prison they said, but the state should not take his life as punishment for him taking the lives of their loved ones. That moved me. And that’s stayed with me.
Those who believe Shapiro is nothing but a political animal might detect some political cynicism at play here. Sure, you supported the death penalty when you ran as a law and order AG, and here you are now, appeasing your progressive base as governor. How convenient. But that in itself is a cynical view. After all, according to Gallup, 53 percent of Americans still support the death penalty. When governors in swing states — particularly Democrats — call for the abolishment of it, it remains an act of political courage just given the numbers.
But forget the issue at play here. Just focus on how Shapiro deploys the full ordnance of political argument — the rationality, the clarity (moral and otherwise), the personal storytelling, the emotional intelligence. These are skills the Harris/Walz ticket desperately needs, with something like less than 6 percent of the likely voting population remaining up for grabs.
Look, Josh Shapiro would have hated being vice president, and I’m told he was conflicted about the prospect of serving in that role. He is, first and foremost, a doer, and VP is not a job for the driven self-starter. “I do not propose to be buried until I am dead,” quipped Daniel Webster upon turning down the vice presidency in 1839.
Moreover, there’s little evidence that people vote based on who the vice president is. But in an election this close, in this battleground state? Now that Walz’s lackluster performance has normalized Vance’s extremism? It may just matter a whole lot.
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