Various folks in the media have rushed to the fainting couches over J.D. Vance's prophecy. However, none of them have an appealing alternative explanation why Kamala Harris left Pennsylvania up for grabs to choose Minnesota governor Tim Walz as a running mate. Shapiro has success in the one state Harris absolutely has to win in November, including a significant degree of Republican approval for his work.

As Vance told Hugh Hewitt this morning shortly before Harris' choice leaked, what other explanation can anyone make for this other than Shapiro's Jewishness?

HH: My last question, Senator Vance. We expect a running mate to be announced by Vice President Harris today. If it’s not Josh Shapiro, I will be stunned. But if it isn’t Josh Shapiro, if they pick Tim Walz, who makes Tim Kaine seem like Justin Timberlake, he’s the most boring man in America, if it’s not Josh Shapiro, and that’s because he’ll be Jewish and because he’s a supporter of Israel, what does that tell you about the Democratic Party if it’s not Josh Shapiro?

JDV: Well, look, if it’s not Josh Shapiro, I agree with you. I think that they will have not picked Shapiro, frankly, out of the antisemitism in their own caucus, in their own party. I think it’s disgraceful that Democrats have gotten to this point where it’s even an open conversation. And it is an open conversation, Hugh. I mean, even if it is Josh Shapiro, the guy has in some ways had to run away from a lot of his biography over the last few months because the far left doesn’t like the fact that he is a Jewish-American. So look, we have to be honest about this fact, and we have to call it out. Regardless of who the nominee is, Hugh, we’re ready to take them on. And it’s Kamala Harris’ policies that matter the most. She is the person who’s worsened the inflation crisis. She is the person who’s made groceries less affordable. Kamala Harris has made our country less safe, and Kamala Harris has opened the American Southern border. No running mate is going to allow her to run away from a really bad record for the American people. Do we want to give her a promotion, Hugh? I think the American people are going to say absolutely not. We should kick her out of office.

This didn't go down well on the Left, especially after Harris' pick leaked to CNN. Mediaite and the Daily Beast reported it as Vance going on the attack -- which is hardly unknown in elections. It seems a little churlish to turn this into a "Republicans Pounce!™" story when (a) the pick hadn't actually leaked yet, and (b) the new running mate had just auditioned for the role by calling Vance and Republicans "weird."

Besides, what other explanation could there be? After Vance's accusation, Team Kamala began leaking that Shapiro campaigned too hard for the choice, or something:

Two sources confirm on background the deciding factor in the VP’s choice was what Sen Fetterman said publicly: concerns Shapiro’s his own personal ambitions would cause him to upstage/override Harris. The video Shapiro produced with Philly Mayor Cherelle Parker’s team solidified…

— Jacqui Heinrich (@JacquiHeinrich) August 6, 2024

...The video Shapiro produced with Philly Mayor Cherelle Parker’s team solidified this sentiment on Friday.

So, let's get this straight. Harris and her team decided to pass on Pennsylvania because Shapiro got a little aggressive in his desire to join Harris' ticket and help her carry the one state she can't afford to lose. And it had nothing to do with ... this:

ABC's Selina Wang describes opposition to Kamala Harris picking Josh Shapiro as her running mate as "concern" by "Arab Americans" because of "his views".

Unreal. Come on, Selina. Just say it. It's because he's Jewish. pic.twitter.com/yMdmxtVId4

— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) August 5, 2024

Come on, man. Joe Biden went way out of his way to pander to the pro-Palestinian Arabs and college students during his campaign. Now Harris is doing exactly the same thing by avoiding one of the more pro-Israeli Democrats on the national stage. 

After all, Harris is all about identitarian politics. She got her current position explicitly through identitarian politics as exercised by Biden in 2020, when he committed to choosing a black woman as a running mate. Why should anyone be shocked when the obvious identitarian reason for tossing Shapiro aside is observed?

Nate Silver doesn't go as far as Vance does in his analysis, but he can't figure out any better explanation either. Silver also points out that identity politics has been in the calculation from the beginning:

Do I think this is the right pick? No. On Saturday, I made the case that Harris should pick Shapiro. And nothing has really changed since then — although you could argue that Harris’s increasingly strong position in the polls compels greater risk-aversion than when she’d initially appeared to be an underdog against Donald Trump. The basic reasons for picking Shapiro are that he increases the likelihood you win Pennsylvania, he has a demonstrated track record of popularity in the most important swing state, he’s obviously an extremely talented politician and perhaps a future standard-bearer for the party himself. And also, the reasons for not picking Shapiro aren’t great. Democrats in the political bubble overstate the salience of the Gaza issue and understate the benefits of moderation, and that’s before getting into the issue of Shapiro’s Jewishness. ...

Do I trust the process here? In other words, do I think Harris came to this choice for the right reasons — or at least the reasons that I think are the right reasons? Mostly not, I suppose, although as I said above, I’ll want to read more reporting on the reasons for her pick. I certainly trust anything and everything involving the Harris campaign much more than I trusted anything that Biden was doing. But I thought the decision not to consider Whitmer or other candidates who weren't white men was poor and in some ways ironically harkened back to the process by which Harris herself was chosen.

And I thought the rollout was a bit weird, creating some sense that Shapiro was left at the altar. 

That looks calculated too, a way to embarrass Shapiro on the way out the door. That's especially biting after all of the dancing Shapiro did over the last few days to retreat from his support for Israel in the past. He did all of that for nothing, and at least in reporting at the moment, didn't even get a consolation phone call.

How will that play in Pennsylvania? And how will a ticket that includes a man who let Minneapolis burn for several days and a woman who helped bail out rioters play outside of Philly and Pittsburgh? Or maybe even in Pittsburgh, after the Shapiro snub?

And one last question: How will this impact Jewish voters, who already had plenty of reasons for disaffection over the months since October 7 from the radicals running the Democrat Party? Will they swallow their disaffection to support a ticket that snubbed Shapiro -- or look for alternatives in November?