It’s been reported the classic Democratic DC consultant class operatives as well as many “Never Trump” GOPers, and professional centrists thought that Josh Shapiro should be Kamala Harris’ VP pick. Shapiro no doubt would come from the same tired playbook that led Hillary Clinton to pick Tim Kaine and to assume that a VP pick really matters. It only matters if you totally blow it (like John McCain) or have a fatal weakness you need to offset (JFK was Catholic, he needed a southern running mate).

Within minutes of the Walz selection leaking on Tuesday AM, I had multiple Substacks emailed to me from the usual suspects stating that the pick was strange and “risky.” Remember Walz was not on the initial list of potential running mates the media and talking head chattering class drew up two weeks ago…then soon after that he emerged when it was obvious VP Harris had interest in Walz the narratives started to change. But only slightly…

Why is this pick so brilliant? And so contrary to conventional wisdom? A few points.

Harris is a women and color. Offsetting her with a plain-spoken blue-collar Midwesterner with military experience is making a VP pick potentially matters. Picking Josh Shapiro would be a gamble as Dave Trotter put it to run up the score in four specific PA counties. So in fact, Walz is the safer pick. Shapiro is basically doubling-down on Northeastern elitism, and prosecutorial smugness (recall that Harris herself is a former prosecutor). Plus he’s pro-private school voucher. The part of Shapiro that appealed to me was that he’s Jewish and particularly with the rise of antisemitism on both the far left and far right recently, I was sentimental about that potential idea of breaking that glass ceiling. But outside of that, it would simply have reinforced why the regular American really dislikes Democrats these days.

Reorientation of the Democratic Party – The Democratic Party, whose historic roots are in the south has become a party of elites in recent years – centered around the Washington DC, New York and Boston areas, Democrats, in my opinion as well as many whose views I respect, have increasingly resembled a regional party competing in national elections. While some readers may resent this characterization it was becoming more and more obvious the party’s chattering classes and important operatives were being centralized in the Northeast corridor, largely explaining why the party was so divorced from electoral reality in the rest of the country.

The elite media and left think issues matter- they really don’t. Walz being “progressive” is largely irrelevant to winning back lapsed working class voters. Issues don’t matter but vibes and emotion does. Heck even some intellectual policy wonks now get this – I was surprised to see David Frum Monday night, on my favorite UK podcast (hosted by Alistair Campbell and Rory Stewart, two huge UK political figures) admit this instead of the usual intellectualizing we hear from him. More and more folks who study voter behavior are beginning to understand this. It’s about vibes. Walz progressive record in his 12 years in the US House are largely meaningless in the bigger picture.

I could go on and on, but I think this is a great VP pick and I am sure the same smug political consultants that were wrong in 2016 and generally wrong in 2020 about how close the election would be and have consistently shown they don’t get the electorate or changing attitudes about both economics and culture will be wrong again.